Virginia Guard Jailed for Using Handcuffs as Brass Knuckles To Punch Mentally Ill Inmate 45 Times

Virginia Guard Jailed for Using Handcuffs as Brass Knuckles To Punch Mentally Ill Inmate 45 Times

A Virginia prison guard who punched a mentally ill inmate 45 times with a pair of handcuffs wound around his fist has been jailed for a year in a rare federal prosecution of a corrections officer. David McMurry, 52, was sentenced on Thursday 20 August 2026 inside the federal courthouse in Abingdon, more than four years after the assault took place at Wallens Ridge State Prison in Big Stone Gap. He had faced up to ten years in prison on a felony …