West Alabama Man Sentenced to 17 Years in Prison for Sexual Abuse of Child

A West Alabama man will spend 17 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to sexually abusing a child younger than 12, Lamar County District Attorney Andy Hamlin announced Wednesday.

Hamlin said Byron Keith McCalpin, who is 51, was accused of sexually abusing a young child in March 2020 in Sulligent, Alabama. A grand jury indicted him on one count of Sexual Abuse of a Child, a Class B felony, in May 2021.

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Now, a year later, McCalpin has entered a guilty plea in the case and has been sentenced to serve nearly two decades in prison.

Hamlin said because of the nature of the crime, McCalpin will not be eligible for parole and will serve the entirety of the 17-year sentence.

If he is released in 2039, McCalpin will be required to register as a sex offender, Hamlin said.

"The Sulligent Police Department and the DHR workers who investigated this case were determined to bring this predator to justice," Hamlin said in a press release. "They conducted a sensitive investigation to find out what happened. They built a really good case which led to this conviction without the child having to relive this event in court during a trial."