Overholt plead guilty to one count of sodomy in the first degree (35 years) with a victim under the age of 12 and six counts (5 years each) of sexual abuse in the first degree with victims under the age of 12. The charges will run concurrently.
Overholt was arrested on Jan. 30 and again on Feb. 14 for numerous sexual abuse charges against children. His wife, Ruth operated a home daycare for years prior to the arrest.
Overholt's attorney Stewart Wheeler said he would not waste the court's time, knowing his client was not eligible for probation. He did say it had been mentioned that Overholt's wife Ruth had known about the abuse, but Wheeler wanted it noted in the record that those statements were never proven.
Commonwealth Attorney Gail Guiling opposed probation in the case. She said the abuse had been going on for 15 years. Some of the victims, said Guiling, were too young to tell what had happened to them and, by Overholt's own admission, was why he choose them.
Overholt refused to give a statement at the sentencing, remaining quiet throughout the hour-long proceedings. However, seven emotional relatives of the abused children were able to address the unemotional Overholt.
“I don't know what to tell you but you are sick and there is a bigger judgment for you one of these days,” said one father.
Another victim's father said, “I told you face-to-face that you needed to think about what you did to my little girl every night when you laid your head on your pillow. I think about every night when I lay on mine. Whether your wife knew or not - we have never gotten an apology.”
“We came into your home with love and trust,” said a grandmother. “How could you and your wife do this? You deserve to stay somewhere where you can't hurt children. This sentence is just.”
An emotional mother said she hoped Merlin and his wife could live with what they had done. “These kids will never be the same.”
Another parent told Overholt he and his wife had kept her child for ten years.
“I trusted you,” he said. “You have seriously hurt me and injured my daughter for life. You took something from my daughter she will never get back.”
A father, whose child and grandchild went to the Overholt's for child care said, “There must be a special place for people like you. I brought my son to your home many times and there came a point when we would pass your road that he would scream ‘no Ruth's, no Ruth's'. I knew something was wrong. He is handicap and cannot tell me but I know it's true. You molested my son and you also molested my granddaughter. You have taken their innocence and their purity. We trusted you with our children and you abused that trust. Jesus says, ‘When you do it to the least of these you do it unto me.'”
Another grandfather wanted to know what a grown man got out of doing what Overholt did to his granddaughter.
“When you go before your maker you will have a lot of explaining to do,” he said. “I will go to my grave never feeling sorry for you.”
After the parents finished, Judge Tyler Gill read a few victim impact statements. These were written statements from members of the victims' families. Gill read a few statements from some of them, which he said all repeatedly mentioned the loss of trust.
One in particular said, “Once a family has to hear about this happening to their baby it will never be the same. Merlin Overholt should not be able to see the outside of the prison walls. If he gets out he will molest children again.”
Gill said he had handled sex abuse cases for years, both as an attorney and a judge. He said he was convinced that abuse of this nature to children 4 and 5 years of age held real effects that followed some of them for the rest of their lives, with some never completely getting over it.
Gill commented that predators usually start when they are very young and have those feelings till they die.
“The urge just doesn't seem to go away,” said Gill who added he didn't lack sympathy for the predators because society sends them to prison where they are abused and “they will not have a peaceful existence. I don't like to see anyone abused, but we have to remove these people to keep them from hurting children.”
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