Stephanie Rolanda Bunch

DALTON, Ga. — A 41-year-old Dalton woman was charged with cruelty to children in the first degree after a “young-aged girl” was found bloodied after being hit “about her face and body,” according to an incident report.

Whitfield County Sheriff’s Office officers were sent to 1471 Chadwick Drive shortly after 6 p.m. on Halloween after a call to 911, and deputies found the juvenile in a cheerleading outfit bleeding “all around the nose, down the mouth and neck, and on the top of the cheerleading outfit.” The report said she was “spitting up blood due to the blood from the nose running down into her throat.”

The girl’s stepmother, Stephanie Rolanda Bunch, was charged with cruelty to children in the first degree (excessive physical or mental pain) and battery (family violence). Cruelty to children in the first degree is a felony in Georgia. Bunch was released from jail Thursday afternoon on a $500 bond with the special condition that she have no contact with the girl.

“I’m sorry about everything and it was an accident,” Bunch said when contacted Thursday, declining to make any other comments.

According to the report, the father of the girl, Glenn Bunch, told officers his daughter had told on his stepdaughter for keying his Ford Mustang during an earlier visit, which upset his wife. He told officers his wife got mad on Wednesday and called his daughter a “two-faced (expletive)” and “started hitting his daughter numerous times.” The girl told deputies that when she “yelled back” at her stepmother “that she was not going to speak to her like that, the stepmother began to hit her on or about her face and body.”

The father said that as he tried separating them, Stephanie Bunch “would not stop hitting his daughter.” After separating the two, the father said his wife got in her car and left. 

The father told officers he and his wife “had been having issues before this and he did not want his wife to discipline his daughter.” When reached Thursday afternoon, Glenn Bunch declined to comment.

Stephanie Bunch was pulled over by a Varnell Police Department officer, who said she “did make a confession” to being “the person who struck the juvenile on Chadwick Drive.”