Thornhill sentenced to 50 years in prison on sex assault charges

MILWAUKEE (WITI) -- A Milwaukee County judge sentenced Thomas Thornhill on Friday, January 18th to 50 years in prison plus an additional 19 years of extended supervision.

Thornhill pleaded guilty in July 2012 to six felony charges including first-degree child sex assault, aggravated battery and false imprisonment.

Prosecutors say Thornhill kidnapped a girl who had been sleeping in her own bed in January 2010. They say he took her to a minivan, raped her, and then left her in an alley on a cold day. 

Thornhill was expressionless as he was wheeled into the courtroom on Friday. Judge David Borowski called this case one of the worst he's seen in his ten years on the bench.

"He treated this child in an inhumane and unhuman fashion," said Judge Borowski. "He drove her around and began to both beat and raped her in a vicious and violent manner that is beyond description."

In 2008, Thornhill attacked a woman walking on Milwaukee's north side. He violently beat her and tried to disfigure her. That victim wrote a statement to be read in Friday's sentencing. It said, "He raped me and left me for dead in a pool of my blood, knocked on the ground, crying with a huge, fat eye."

As for the nine-year-old girl, she had to be hospitalized after the assault. She also needed several surgeries. FOX6 News learned she was put into foster care and is still struggling both physically and emotionally with what happened.