Man pleads guilty to videotaping, abusing hundreds of girls

HARRISONVILLE, Mo. -- A Warsaw man has admitted sexually abusing hundreds of young girls whose assaults he videotaped.

Elza Terry, 55, pleaded guilty Friday to all 16 charges against him. He is scheduled to be sentenced Jan. 24.

Terry faces up to six life terms in prison for raping and sodomizing two girls who were 6 and 8 at the time. The girls lived near Terry in Belton when he resided there in 1999.

Terry faces up to 15 years in prison each for most of the 10 other counts, including charges that on two occasions in 1990 he assaulted a Bates County girl when she was 11 and 12.

He also admitted inappropriately touching an unidentified girl whom he secretly videotaped in the aisle of a Cass County department store.

By pleading guilty, Terry spared his victims and family members from having to view the tapes in front of a jury, detectives said.

Belton Police Sgt. Randy Scott said that Terry's homemade video library totaled more than 200 tapes and showed more victims than investigators could identify.

"There are hundreds of girls on these tapes," Scott said.

Although prosecutors said they were thankful that the victims would be spared a trial, they dropped no charges and offered no concessions in return for Terry's guilty pleas.

"It will be our recommendation that he receive the maximum penalty," Cass County Prosecutor Chris Koster said.

Terry was arrested Dec. 19 after police received a tape that was found in a repossessed truck that once belonged to him. Police said it showed Terry touching many children in various department stores.

Additional tapes of Terry's sexual assaults on children were found during a subsequent search of his trailer home near Warsaw.