Whitehouse woman sentenced to probation following child abuse conviction

SMITH COUNTY — A Whitehouse woman was sentenced to six years of probation with 600 hours of community service after being found guilty by a jury of felony bodily injury to a child. According to our news partner KETK, Cheryl Layne, 46, and her husband Mark Layne, were initially arrested on multiple child abuse charges in 2019 after two of their children told a school resource officer they had been abused. According to arrest documents, the children told authorities one of them had his head slammed against a wall by Cheryl who then hit the other boy with an archery arrow on his back. The boys detailed another incident to authorities, according to documents, and said that Mark had hit one of them his palm and afterwards Cheryl hit him with a belt.

At the time of their arrests, Mark was a 20-year veteran with the Tyler Police Department and Cheryl was a nurse practitioner at Whitehouse Family Medical Primary Care.