A 27-year-old Newport News woman was sentenced Wednesday to 10 years in prison for her guilty pleas that stem from a Jan. 8 incident when she placed an infant beneath a van before running into the Monticello Marketplace T.J. Maxx and making bomb threats.
Jessica Ann Ray has been incarcerated at the Virginia Peninsula Regional Jail since her arrest Jan. 10. Other than the time she has already served, the rest of her sentence was suspended by substitute judge William D. Hamblen.
On the day the incidents occurred, Ray was babysitting the 7-month-old, a 5-year-old and a 6-year-old at the Burger King across the parking lot from T.J. Maxx while the children’s mother was at a hair appointment. Ray is a family friend of the mother and her children.
By the time she was in Burger King with the children, she had taken several Ambien pills and “drank quite a bit of alcohol,” Williamsburg-James City County Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Cathy Black said after Ray pleaded guilty to child abuse and issuing a bomb threat in May.
She abandoned the two older children and took the infant — who wore indoor clothes and was not dressed for the “very cold day” outside, Black said — into the parking lot, where she then placed the child beneath an unmarked vehicle resembling a delivery van.
A dentist on his way to Martin’s heard the infant’s cries and saw Ray climbing out from beneath the vehicle. He retrieved the child. Ray began making miming motions at him, indicating she could not speak or hear anything the dentist said, Black said Wednesday.
She then told the dentist the infant was a bomb.
“He will kill us,” she said, according to police. “You must put him back.”
Ray then ran into the T.J. Maxx and began telling people there was a bomb and it would explode in 30 seconds. She said she had military training and began climbing on the shelves in the back storeroom, according to police.
“I’m the worst person you ever met,” Ray told the store’s patrons, according to Black.
Ray left the store and began taking her clothes off as officers from the James City County Police Department arrived on scene. She struggled with the officers but was eventually restrained and taken into custody.
During Wednesday’s sentencing hearing, Ray’s attorney, Fernando Groene, referred to Ray’s past as “troubled.” He said his client was “out of her mind” when she placed the infant beneath the van and made the threats in T.J. Maxx.
“She thought she had to go to the store to warn people,” Groene said of the bomb threats. “She is in serious need of medical help.”
Shortly before Hamblen pronounced her sentence, Ray told the court she was sorry to everyone, “especially the children.”
“I love those kids and I would never hurt a child,” Ray said. She said she did not remember anything that happened during the incidents at Monticello Marketplace.
Hamblen agreed with Groene’s characterization of Ray’s actions as “bizarre.” He asked Ray whether she thought the Ambien and alcohol was a contributing factor, to which she said yes.
“That’s what you need to seize on and realize above all else — the reason you did these life-threatening things is because of what you ingested,” Hamblen said.
As part of Ray’s sentence, she must avoid alcohol, receive mental health counseling and complete a treatment program. She must also avoid contact with children and employment involving contact with children unless her probation officer approves.
“You have a complete situation you have to deal with,” Hamblen told Ray. “It may appear to be insurmountable, but it’s not.”
He then warned her about relapsing.
“If there’s a recurrence of this sort of behavior because you’re drunk, high, feeling bad, whatever, you’re going to prison,” he said.
None of the children were hurt during the incidents. An officer received a minor injury on his leg when it struck the doorjamb of a vehicle, however he did not require medical treatment.
The incident shut down the T.J. Maxx for hours on Jan. 8. The James City County Fire Department and the Fire Marshal’s Office arrived on scene around the time of Ray’s arrest and evacuated the store. The Newport News Fire Department Bomb Squad and the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force then responded and assisted with the search of the building.
No explosives were found.
Ray received five years each for one felony count of child abuse and one felony count of threat to bomb. Two more counts of felony child abuse were dropped in exchange for her guilty pleas in May.
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