Landon Doty was sentenced Monday to 54 years in prison after a Jennings County jury found him guilty of raping a 7-year-old student on a school bus. Judge Murielle Bright handed down the punishment in the case that had already put the North Vernon teen at the center of a rare adult prosecution.
The sentence is the reason his name is being searched now: it turns an earlier guilty verdict into a long prison term that will keep him out of the community for decades. Doty, 16, was convicted in April on charges including rape, attempted rape, child molesting, attempted child molesting, sexual battery, attempted sexual battery, criminal confinement and public indecency.
Bright split the punishment across the counts. Doty received 16 years on the rape charges, 16 years on the attempted rape, child molesting and attempted child molesting counts, and 2 1/2 years for sexual battery and attempted sexual battery. He also received 2 1/2 years suspended to probation for criminal confinement and one year suspended to probation for public indecency.
The case turned on what happened over several weeks in April 2025 and on what the bus camera showed. Jennings County school bus video reportedly captured several of the incidents, and during Doty's two-day trial the jury watched the footage for more than an hour. A school bus monitor later noticed Doty pushing the 7-year-old off his lap on the morning of April 17, 2025, had the bus driver stop and confront him, and requested a review of the surveillance video.
That evidence did not end the dispute over what the jury actually saw. Doty's attorneys said the bus monitor and bus driver saw nothing alarming when they were deposed last September, argued that the evidence was circumstantial and said Doty's DNA was not found on the child. Doty testified that he did not touch the 7-year-old sexually. The defense also said the monitor was not acting funny or upset after the alleged acts, but the jury still returned guilty verdicts on multiple counts after seeing the bus videos in court.
Doty was tried as an adult despite being 16 years old, a choice that made the sentencing far harsher than a juvenile case would have been. The alleged victim was described as autistic and non-verbal, and the prosecution's case depended in part on school bus video footage rather than direct eyewitness testimony. With Monday's sentence now set, the next step is simple: Doty begins serving the prison term the court imposed, while the conviction itself remains the central fact the case will be measured against.
