Stepdaughter says Paddock beat her

SMITHFIELD -- Lynn Paddock's stepdaughter told a judge today that Paddock beat her from the time she was 3 years old.

Jessy Paddock, now 20, testified this afternoon during a hearing on whether a jury in Lynn Paddock's murder trial should be allowed to hear evidence relating to her character and crimes for which she is not facing trial.

Lynn Paddock is charged with first-degree murder in the suffocation of her 4-year-old adopted son, Sean.

"I had a sense as a child of her being jealous of me," said Jessy Paddock, the daughter of Lynn Paddock's former husband, Johnny. "I was afraid of making her angry."

Jessy Paddock was the oldest of seven children in the Paddocks' Smithfield farmhouse. She recounted a long history of Lynn Paddock hitting her about the face, punching her and yelling at her.

Jessy Paddock told the judge that after the Paddocks adopted their third child in 2003, Lynn Paddock's discipline grew even more severe. She'd traded ping pong paddles for plastic plumbing supply line and would swing at the children's legs and arms and heads as hard as she could, Jessy Paddock said.

Lynn Paddock kept the children in line by making them sit cross-legged on the floor, staring for hours at blank walls, Jessy Paddock testified. She said their mother would insist that some of the children place their hands on their heads while they sat in silence.

Earlier today, Johnny Paddock said in an interview that he thinks Lynn Paddock is guilty of killing Sean and should be brought to justice.

"We're helping to prosecute this case," he said.

Paddock might be called to testify against his former wife during her trial this week. He said he was fully unaware of what Sean and the other children endured in his home when he was away at work.

As he spoke to reporters, Johnny Paddock was flanked by Jessy Paddock and another daughter, Tami.

Johnny Paddock divorced his wife last year and has moved to Raleigh.

"We've all been through a lot. We've tried to move on," he said.

He said he thinks of Sean often and loved the boy.

Sean suffocated in 2006 after being wrapped so tightly in blankets that he couldn't breathe; investigators have said that Paddock bound Sean to keep the boy from roaming the hallways of their home.

Johnston County Assistant District Attorney Paul Jackson told Judge Knox Jenkins this morning that Paddock had wrapped and used duct tape to secure bindings around another adopted child. Jackson argued that Paddock ought to be tried in Sean's death and the abuse of the other children simultaneously.

"This is a course of conduct that was related," Jackson said. "It was a pattern of abuse."

Paddock faces several counts of felony child abuse for her discipline of two of her other adopted children; the children, as well as Sean, were covered with bruises that investigators say resulted from beatings with a plastic plumbing supply line.

Jenkins is hearing a number of motions today in advance of jury selection. He is considering:

* Whether to allow Sean's older sister and brother to testify by video. A number of psychologists have said the children would face setbacks if they had to appear in court before Paddock, who is also accused of beating them with plastic plumbing supply line.

* A request to require prosecutors to disclose whether they have promised immunity to witnesses against Paddock. Johnny Paddock, who is now divorced from Lynn Paddock, was never charged in Sean's death or with the abuse of the other children. He has been ordered to attend the hearing this week.

* A motion to suppress statements that Paddock may have made while jailed during the first few days after Sean's death in February 2006.

Lynn Paddock's lawyer, Michael Reece, has said that she fell under the spell of Michael Pearl, a controversial evangelical minister from Tennessee who coaches parents on how to raise docile, God-fearing children. Paddock had turned to his guidance to help rear her six adopted children, including Sean and his two siblings.

The hearing was adjourned shortly after 5 p.m. today. Testimony from the Paddock children is scheduled to resume on Tuesday.