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SMITH COUNTY – A Bullard man was sentenced to 25 years in prison Monday after two young girls told their dad they had been sexually abused in July 2024, according to a report from our news partner KETK.<\/p>\nSMITH COUNTY – A Bullard man was sentenced to 25 years in prison Monday after two young girls told their dad they had been sexually abused in July 2024, according to a report from our news partner KETK.<\/p>\n
On Dec. 12, 2024, the Smith County Sheriff\u2019s Office received a transfer case of physical and sexual abuse involving three children from the Anderson County Sheriff\u2019s Office. Smith County officials learned that two sisters, under the age of 10, had been placed with their biological father. The two girls told their father they had been sexually abused in July, and he reported the allegations to the Anderson County Sheriff\u2019s Office. Officials also learned that Child Protective Services ordered a Child Safety Check Alert List (CSCAL) for their 3-year-old sibling.<\/p>\n
Anderson County officials were unable to locate the children before transferring the case to Smith County, but due to the seriousness of the allegations, multiple agencies worked together to identify the suspects and their locations. <\/p>\n
\u201cInvestigators responded to multiple locations on County Road 152 West near Bullard,\u201d the Smith County Sheriff\u2019s Office said. \u201cDuring the search of these locations, the three-year-old child was located and taken into protective custody.\u201d Officers arrested Raywin Lyons,65, and Melissa Branch, 38, on two counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child.<\/p>\n
On Monday, Lyons pleaded guilty to the two counts and was sentenced to 25 years in prison. Branch was found \u201cincompetent to stand trial\u201d for her two charges on June 24.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SMITH COUNTY – A Bullard man was sentenced to 25 years in prison Monday after two young girls told their dad they had been sexually abused in July 2024, according to a report from our news partner KETK. On Dec. 12, 2024, the Smith County Sheriff\u2019s Office received a transfer case of physical and sexual … Continue reading Two charged with child sexual abuse<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1426796,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2025\/07\/Screenshot-2025-07-15-115028-e1752598320209-200x200.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1426310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news-archive-archives"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-08 13:26:22","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2025\/07\/Screenshot-2025-07-15-115028-e1752598320209-200x200.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1426310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1426310"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1426310\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1426900,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1426310\/revisions\/1426900"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1426796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1426310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1426310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1426310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}