A 58-year-old San Antonio man was sentenced to 40 years in prison this week after pleading guilty to sexually abusing his two adopted daughters for nearly a decade and hiding a spy camera disguised as a phone charger in their bathroom, according to Bexar County officials. Bryce Chatland was sentenced on September 1, closing out a case that began when the victims came forward in June 2023.
According to KENS 5, the victims reported to the Bexar County Sheriff's Office that Chatland had sexually abused his adopted daughters for more than seven years, with officials saying the abuse spanned almost a decade. Bexar County District Attorney Joe D. Gonzales said in a statement that “children should never have to endure the unimaginable abuse these victims experienced, especially at the hands of someone entrusted with their care.”
Court records cited by the outlet allege that Chatland used the hidden camera, disguised as a phone charger, placed inside the victims' bathroom. Officials said investigators recovered child pornography depicting the girls as part of the evidence against him. Chatland was charged with at least 10 counts of possession of child pornography, according to court records referenced in the report.
Guilty Plea Ends Years-Long Case
Chatland pleaded guilty on July 8 to several counts of continuous sexual abuse of a child under 14 and possession of child pornography. Under Texas Penal Code § 21.02, continuous sexual abuse of a young child is a first-degree felony carrying a mandatory minimum of 25 years and up to 99 years or life, with no parole eligibility until that 25-year minimum is served, according to Deandra Grant Law. That statutory framework traces back to Texas House Bill 8, known as Jessica's Law, which eliminated statutes of limitations for severe child sexual offenses and instituted mandatory minimum 25-year sentences for repeat offenses against children under 14, according to the Scheiner Law Group.
A Brief Flight, Then Arrest
The criminal investigation began after one of the victims' parents reported the abuse to the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services and an attorney, who then alerted the Bexar County Sheriff's Office. Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar disclosed that the victims were Chatland's adopted daughters, ages 13 and 15 at the time, and that allegations indicated the abuse began around 2016, when the older victim was seven years old. Investigators also recovered the hidden camera containing recorded videos of the minor victims, according to a report circulated by KSAT at the time.
Following the outcry, Chatland fled San Antonio for Dripping Springs, Texas, on June 20, 2023, before Bexar County Sheriff's deputies located and arrested him the next day, per that same report.
Part of a Pattern in Bexar County
Chatland's sentence follows a string of similarly severe outcomes in Bexar County courts. In November 2025, the Bexar County District Attorney's Office secured a life sentence against Aaron Roesser after a jury convicted him of continuous sexual abuse of a child following an outcry made in 2023. In June, a Bexar County jury convicted 71-year-old music instructor Joe Suarez Jr. of the same offense, resulting in life imprisonment without parole plus two consecutive 20-year terms. And in March, State District Judge Kristina Escalona sentenced 60-year-old Larry Botello to life plus stacked prison terms after a Bexar County jury conviction on the same charge.
Those cases reflect a broader regional pattern: data compiled by the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services in 2026 indicates that Bexar County consistently records the highest proportionate rate of confirmed child abuse cases among major metropolitan counties in Texas. Open questions remain about how the adoption screening and post-placement oversight of Chatland's daughters were handled before the 2023 outcry, and what the terms of his guilty plea mean for future parole consideration or sex offender registry obligations.
