Man who videotaped assaults gets life in prison

HARRISONVILLE, Mo. -- A western Missouri man who told authorities he could not control "the ugly monster" within himself was sentenced to two consecutive life terms for his videotaped sexual assaults on young girls.

Elza Terry, 55, of Warsaw, was sentenced Thursday. Cass County Circuit Court Judge Jacqueline Cook actually gave him six life terms, but only two will run consecutively.

Terry pleaded guilty on Nov. 30 to 16 criminal counts, including raping and sodomizing two girls, then 6 and 8, in Cass County in the late 1990s.

He also admitted raping and sodomizing a Bates County girl more than a decade ago. She was 11 and 12 at the time.

Before his sentence was handed down, Terry mournfully faced some of the families seated in the crowded courtroom.

"I don't know how it happened," he said. "If I could give my life to fix it, I would."

'The ugly monster'

Earlier in the hearing, prosecutors played portions of Terry's videotaped confession, in which he lamented "the ugly monster" within him that he said he could not control.

Cook sentenced Terry to five 15-year prison terms for the assaults on the Bates County girl. She also sentenced Terry to one year in the Cass County jail for touching a girl whom he secretly videotaped in the aisle of a department store.

The actions were not "careless and reckless," the judge told Terry. "They were planned and intentional acts for your own sexual gratification."

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

Cass County Prosecutor Chris Koster Koster praised the sentence.

"The judge was very clear," he said. Terry "is going into prison in shackles and going out in a coffin. And frankly, that's what he deserves."