Man Gets Life Plus 10 To 20 Years In Boy's Beating Death

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WEST CHESTER, Pa. (AP) - A man has been sentenced to life in prison plus 10 to 20 years in the 2014 beating death of his former girlfriend's 3-year-old son near Philadelphia.

Twenty-six-year-old Gary Lee Fellenbaum III was sentenced Friday after pleading guilty to first-degree murder in the November 2014 death of Scott McMillan in a mobile home in West Caln Township.

Under a plea deal, Chester County prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty. Prosecutors said they agreed to the plea to spare another child from having to testify.

Authorities alleged that spankings turned to abuse in the fall of 2014 and the boy was finally "punched and beaten with blunt and sharp objects," whipped, beaten while being taped to a chair or hung up by his feet amid other acts of violence.

This story has been corrected to note that the defendant is 26 rather than 25.

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