Mother guilty of child endangering

A Clark County jury delivered a guilty verdict against a Springfield mother, accused of beating and raping her five adopted children.

After three weeks, testimony wrapped up on Friday, in the case of Vonda Ferguson.  Ferguson was charged with 32 counts of child endangering, permitting child abuse, felonious assault and rape, involving five children she adopted with her husband, James Ferguson.

Prosecutors portrayed Vonda Ferguson as a heartless mother, who got joy from punishing her children. They described as she laughed and mocked the children, while goading her husband to beat them.

The five children took the stand during the trial, and testified that they were beaten with belts, sticks, bats, and hammers, until they bled. Prosecutors said Ferguson also burned the children with irons, treated them like slaves in their own home, made them stand against a wall for hours, starved them, and even raped two of them with the handle of a toilet plunger.

"She choked her children, stuck a stick down Sherita's throat. They were held under water. Liquid soap was put in the eyes of Joseph because he wet himself. Sherita was forced to put feces in her mouth," said Chris Wagner, a prosecuter with the U.S Attorney General's office.

Ferguson's defense attorney, Rick Marshall countered, and said the children were disturbed and came from homes with troubled backgrounds. Marshall said they had all lied about the way their mother treated them.

"Ask yourself what kind of child would do something like that. Put these people in this kind of a situation," said Marshall.

Vonda Ferguson could head to prison for more than 60 years.  James Ferguson was sentenced to serve 64 years in prison for similar crimes by a Clark County jury.