The Region - News from Sept. 5, 1985

A Kern County prosecutor said that sentences ranging from 285 to 405 years were appropriate for seven Bakersfield residents convicted of child molestation. “The defendants, by their own acts, subjected the victims to lifetime sentences of traumatization, nightmares and broken homes, and losing the innocence of childhood,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael Vandrasco said. Superior Court Judge Gary Friedman said he accepted the stiff sentences recommended by probation officers because of the cruelty, callousness and viciousness of the crimes involving 10 children ranging in age from 3 to 10. The case produced a record prison sentence for women in California and the second-longest term imposed on a man. Grace Dill, 50, her son, Wayne, 29, and Gina Miller, 24, were sentenced to 405 years each. Grace Dill’s daughters, Colleen Bennett Forsythe, 26, and Marcella Pitts, 29, and Pitts’ husband, Ricky Lynn Pitts, 33, received 373 years. Forsythe’s husband, Wayne, 28, got 285 years.