The GORE Children - 1 CAGED GIRL - 5 yo (4/11) - / (Parents convicted) - INFANT BOY murdered - (discovered 4/11) - / Charged: Parents; Shannon and Brian Gore - Gloucester VA

GLOUCESTER — In a case of abuse of a daughter at the hands of her parents that even they said defied explanation, Brian and Shannon Gore were each sentenced Tuesday to 30 years in prison.

The Gores had penned their daughter in a makeshift cage in a darkened bedroom apparently for years in abuse that Gloucester Circuit Judge R. Bruce Long compared to the worst horrors of Nazi Germany. Long noted that before him he had two photos, one of them a shot of the girl about 3 years of age when she is a beautiful, happy, normal little girl.

The other photo was taken three years later when Gloucester Sheriff's investigators discovered her naked, emaciated and covered in her own feces and folded up in a makeshift cage fashioned from an upside-down crib.


"When I first saw that picture," Long said, "the words that came to my mind were Auschwitz, Dachau, Treblinka."

Speaking directly to the Gores, Long said their "daughter looks like someone in a Nazi death camp."

Long sentenced the Gores to the maximum 10 years in prison on child abuse convictions and the minimum 20 years in prison on convictions of aggravated malicious wounding. They had faced life in prison on the aggravated malicious wounding convictions.

Shannon Gore turns 27 on June 27. Brian Gore is 31.

Commonwealth's Attorney Holly Smith had asked Long to sentence the Gores to the maximum sentences of life in prison on the aggravated malicious wounding convictions. Smith said the couple's daughter will be forever stunted due to the abuse and neglect.

"She will never be right, Judge," Smith said. "They showed no mercy and they deserve no mercy."

The girl was discovered in a darkened bedroom on April 28, 2011, Smith said. Gloucester Sheriff's deputies and investigators had gone to the Gores' trailer on an unrelated criminal investigation.

One of the bedrooms was for an infant son and was decorated and had all the trapping of an adorable nursery, including a crib, changing table, toys and a comfortable rocker, Smith said. Another bedroom was dark, lacking a single lamp and full of dusty unused exercise equipment and boxes of discarded clutter, she said.

"That's the room they chose for their daughter," Smith said.

When investigators stumbled upon the girl, she reached out to them through the crib. Atop the crib was a heavy board with boxes stacked to the ceiling on top of it, all designed to keep the girl from escaping.

Inside the makeshift cage was a rotted mattress with rusted springs, feces several inches deep and the girl, Smith said.

Her joints were frozen in place from being caged, her legs folded up underneath her and her heels digging so hard into her buttocks that she had open wounds. She couldn't speak and was eating the flaking skin off her body and her own mucous.

"What must she have thought day after day?" Smith said. "Was she scared in the dark and on dark and stormy nights?"

Smith asked how many nights the girl's tummy growled as she smelled her parents cooking dinner.

"How many nights did she wonder, `What did I do wrong?'" Smith said.

Today the girl has the mind of a 3-year-old, though she turns 9 this fall, and the prognosis is that she will remain with a child's mind even as her body grows and develops, Smith said. Her daily goals at this point include doing a jumping jack, standing on one foot, or mastering coloring.

It's hard to articulate the emotional toll, Smith said. The girl lives in constant fear of not being able to eat and struggles not to eat food dropped on the ground by strangers, Smith said.

Neither Brian Gore nor Shannon Gore could explain the abuse. Their attorneys and psychologists hired to determine the couple's respective mental health said that Shannon Gore became impregnated by Brian Gore when she was 17.

The two feared Brian Gore would get in trouble with the law if it was discovered he impregnated her, even though the age of consent in Virginia is 17. Shannon Gore hid the pregnancy and gave birth to the daughter without medical attention.

A second child, a son, was born three years later, in 2007. The two were still unmarried and the second pregnancy was also kept a secret.

The son died on March 21, 2008, however, although it's unclear how he died and no charges have been filed in connection with his death. Shannon Gore carried the dead child around for days before allowing Brian Gore to bury him in the back yard, according to court testimony.

Shannon Gore said in tearful testimony that she was depressed after the death of her son. It was around that time that the abuse and neglect of their daughter began, according to court testimony.

There's no excuse for the abuse, Shannon Gore said.

"Even though I failed her miserably, I love her with all my heart," Shannon Gore said. "I do."

Brian Gore said he owes a great many apologies to a great many people. There's no justifiable reasons or excuses for his actions, he said.

"To all involved, I'm truly sorry that any of this happened," Brian Gore said.

He finished by saying he was glad it was brought to an end.