Landon Doty was sentenced Monday to a total of 54 years in prison for sexually abusing a 7-year-old student on a school bus. Judge Murielle Bright imposed the sentence after a jury found Doty guilty in April on charges tied to repeated abuse in April 2025.
The case centered on an autistic, non-verbal child in Jennings County. Doty, 16, of North Vernon, was tried as an adult, and the jury heard more than an hour of bus video during the two-day trial.
Murielle Bright sentencing
Bright gave Doty 16 years on the rape charges and 16 years on the charges of attempted rape, child molesting and attempted child molesting. She also imposed 2 1/2 years for sexual battery and attempted sexual battery.
Two additional parts of the sentence were suspended to probation: 2 1/2 years on criminal confinement and one year on public indecency. Those suspended terms reduce the time Doty will spend in prison under the sentence while leaving probation attached to part of the judgment.
Jennings County bus video
According to court documents, the abuse continued over several weeks in April 2025. A school bus monitor noticed Doty pushing the 7-year-old off his lap on the morning of April 17, 2025, then had the bus driver stop and confront him and requested a review of the bus surveillance video.
Jennings County school bus video reportedly captured several of the incidents, and the jury watched the videos for more than an hour during the two-day trial. The sentencing closes the trial phase that ended with guilty verdicts in April.
Doty testimony
Doty testified that he did not touch the 7-year-old sexually. He told the jury he was using “calming techniques,” including rubbing the child’s hair while the child’s head was in his lap and bouncing the child.
His attorneys said the bus monitor and bus driver “saw nothing alarming” and said the child “was not acting 'funny' nor upset after the alleged acts.” They also said the bus video tapes did not show the acts happening and that Doty’s DNA was not found on the child.
The sentence leaves Doty headed into prison under a term that includes both immediate incarceration and suspended time on probation, ending a case that turned on school bus video, witness accounts and a jury verdict in April.
