Portland man convicted of child sexual abuse, sentenced to life without parole
SUMNER COUNTY, Tenn. – A Portland man who raped and sexually molested young girls in Sumner and Rutherford Counties has been sentenced.
According to a release, Criminal Court Judge Dee David Gay sentenced 32-year-old Walter Lucian Lewis, of Portland, to three consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole plus an additional 60 years after convictions for continuous sexual abuse of a child, three counts of aggravated rape of a child, aggravated sexual battery, especially aggravated sexual exploitation of a minor, sexual exploitation of a minor, especially aggravated kidnapping, and aggravated assault on a first responder.
The Sumner County Sheriff’s Office launched an investigation into Lewis after two children told them that Lewis had touched them inappropriately.
The children also told detectives that they saw Lewis molest another child.
Lewis told the children to “keep what he was doing a secret,” according to the release.
During follow-up interviews, the three children told detectives the sexual abuse happened during periods in 2024 and 2025.
Detectives later discovered that Lewis sexually abused a child in Rutherford County in 2022.
The release states that after Lewis was interviewed about the allegations, he made suicidal threats and barricaded himself inside a bathroom while holding a 1-year-old hostage.
When Deputies entered the bathroom, Lewis stabbed himself in the neck in an apparent suicide attempt.
Deputies subdued Lewis and located the baby unharmed in a bathtub, according to the release.
Lewis’s sentence is the longest ever imposed for a child sexual abuse case, and the first sentencing of life without the possibility of parole in Sumner County.
