TEXARKANA, Texas - The conviction and life sentence a 56-year-old man received last year at the end of a trial in Bowie County was affirmed by an appellate court Thursday.
Rickey Wayne Willis was convicted of the continuous sexual abuse of a child under 14 involving a girl who testified she was 2 or 3 when the abuse began.
Continuous sexual abuse of a child under 14 is punishable by 25 to 99 years or life in prison and there is no parole from any sentence imposed.
Because Willis has a 1991 conviction for sexually abusing a toddler in Miller County, Ark., his punishment range was enhanced to an automatic life sentence. On appeal, Willis argued that the crime in Arkansas shouldn't have been used to enhance his punishment range in Texas.
The Sixth District Court of Appeals in Texarkana disagreed and affirmed Willis' conviction and sentence in an opinion released Thursday. The higher court agreed with the ruling by the trial judge that the prior offense in Arkansas is similar to a felony sex crime on the books in Texas.
At Willis' trial in October 2018, the jury heard not only from the victim named in Willis' indictment in Bowie County but from the victim in the Miller County case and from a cousin of Willis' who testified he sexually abused her when she was a child.
Willis is serving his sentence of life without parole at the Ellis Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice in Huntsville, Texas.