Long prison sentence awaits child rapist

David Wayne Phillips, 43, will spend the next 25 years behind bars after pleading guilty to a number of sexually related charges on Monday.

Phillips pleaded guilty to rape of a child, two counts of aggravated sexual battery and five violations of the sex offender registry and will serve the entire 25-year sentence.

He appeared Monday before Circuit Court Judge Robert Crigler to announce the plea after a number of continuances in his case.

Phillips had been added to the offender registry in 2004 for two counts of sexual battery and one count of aggravated sexual battery that involved minors in Marshall County.

Detective Becky Hord of the Bedford County Sheriff's Department had been looking for Phillips since December 2008 after he failed to report in, as he was required to do four times a year as a registered sex offender.

In February, while Phillips was working for a local trucking firm, he allowed a child to ride in a truck, where he committed two sexual acts that consisted of the charges of rape of a child.

The two counts of aggravated sexual battery against Phillips were the result of incidents involving two Shelbyville children.

The five counts of violating the sex offender registry are due to Phillips failing to report changes of living arrangements, providing false information about his whereabouts and violating his residential restrictions by living with the two children.

Hord testified in July that Phillips was picked up in Mississippi on warrants at the end of March, was held there for nearly a week and then transported to Bedford County, where he made bond.

But after that, Hord said that Phillips then gave her another false address in Shelbyville and it was following that incident that the detective got a call from a Bedford County parent who believed that Phillips may have "done something to my children."

The parent explained to Hord that Phillips had stayed with the family "and kept my children for me." Hord also testified that the parent had "no idea" that the children were in any danger.

Hord interviewed the children and said that Phillips would allegedly take the children for rides in the semi he drove and even rented a hotel room in Shelbyville to stay with the kids, but nothing occurred at that time.

However, the children did tell Hord about other incidents of a sexual nature.