A jury has convicted a man accused in the 2015 death of his girlfriend’s 4-year-old daughter of first-degree murder and child endangerment causing death.
The Courier reports that Chad Little, of Waterloo, was found guilty Tuesday in a Black Hawk County court and faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole.
Prosecutors say Little abused his girlfriend’s two children, and delivered a fatal head injury to 4-year-old Gracie Buss in May 2015.
During Little’s trial, doctors testified that the girl had a series of old and new bruises allover her body and bleeding within her eye, pointing to abusive trauma.
Gracie’s older brother told police that Little had struck him and the girl in the year before the girl’s death, when Little moved in to the children’s home.