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Lubbock man convicted in 2020 child sexual abuse case

A 45-year-old man – already serving a 20-year sentence in federal prison for possession of child sexual abuse material – was sentenced last week to 10 years in prison for sexually abusing a child.

Clayton McBryde appeared before District Judge John McClendon in 137th District Court on Wednesday and pleaded guilty to sexual abuse of a child, a second-degree felony punishable by two to 20 years in prison.

Initially, he was charged with three counts of aggravated sexual abuse of a child and one count of indecent behavior towards a child.

As part of an agreement with the Lubbock County District Attorney's Office, McBryde pleaded guilty to a lesser count of sexual abuse of a child and the remaining charges were dropped.

His sentence will be served concurrently with a 20-year prison sentence imposed on him by U.S. District Judge James Hendrix in May 2022 for possession of child pornography featuring a prepubescent minor.

His charges stem from a Lubbock Police investigation that began in February 2020, when Lubbock Police received a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that at least one video containing child sexual abuse material had been uploaded to a social media site through an email address associated with McBryde.

Three months later, unrelated to the child pornography investigation, a 14-year-old girl came forward, claiming that McBryde had sexually abused her about two years earlier.

The girl described several incidents of abuse in a forensic interview. In one case, the girl said McBryde was drunk and began touching her inappropriately before attempting to rape her when she was 12. However, she was able to escape him.

When the girl got a cell phone, McBryde began sending her inappropriate messages and forced her to send him nude pictures of herself. He also sent her videos of fathers raping their children and asked her to compile them.

In March 2020, he sexually abused her. A month later, he raped her.

A nurse in charge of investigating sexual crimes found injuries on the girl's genitals that were consistent with her complaint.

She said McBryde threatened to harm her mother if she told anyone about the abuse.

The girl's younger sister also made strong accusations against McBryde. She said he forced her to lie next to him “to be able to sleep better” and touched her inappropriately.

Other family members described McBryde as a “tyrannical dictator who brutally beat and bruised his children with a paddle, humiliated members of his household, and jealously guarded and exploited his financial power over the family,” court documents say.

In September 2020, police obtained an arrest warrant for McBryde. He was taken to the Lubbock County Detention Center and released on bail three days later.

When Lubbock police investigated the sexual assault allegation, they searched McBryde's computer and found a folder containing a picture of a prepubescent girl engaged in a sexual act.

A month later, a federal grand jury indicted him on child pornography charges.

According to court records, he was arrested in Indiana in April 2021 on federal charges.

Five months later, he pleaded guilty to the charges and faced a maximum prison sentence of 20 years.

At the sentencing hearing in court in May 2022, Hendrix described McBryde as a violent and tyrannical man “who clearly has a sexual interest in children.”

“And you've acted on it time and time again. (This) is one of the worst cases of actual abuse that (the court) has ever seen. (The victims) will be serving a life sentence after this type of abuse. They'll have to deal with it for the rest of their lives. They'll get 20 years.”

Federal court records show that Hendrix ordered that McBryde's prison sentence be served concurrently with the sentence he receives in the state proceedings.

McClendon informed McBryde that after serving his sentence, he would have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.

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