A DERANGED couple allegedly raped a six-year-old girl and held her prisoner beside her sister’s corpse after brutally murdering her mother.
Daniel Callihan, 37, confessed to murdering his ex-girlfriend Callie Brunett, 35, in her Louisiana home in June last year before he abducted her two young daughters.
Callihan stabbed Brunett more than 50 times, before kidnapping her eldest daughter alongside four-year-old Erin, court documents said.
Brunett’s elder daughter has not been named for legal reasons.
He then drove the sisters more than 130 miles to Mississippi to his partner Victoria Cox, 34.
The sick pair kept the six-year-old girl as a “sex-slave”, according to a summary of facts signed by Callihan.
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The 37-year-old pleaded guilty to federal charges in August.
He confessed to suffocating Erin to death, by “holding [her] closely against his chest”, after he and Cox sexually assaulted the child, court documents said.
Police rescued the surviving six-year-old on June 13 when they found her mother’s stolen car parked close to Callihan’s property.
Cops found her in a dirt pit, where the vile couple had been holding her captive.
She was located alongside the remains of her murdered sister.
Callihan will spend the rest of his life locked up after pleading guilty to both federal and state charges in connection to the depraved crimes.
Cox, who only faces state charges, was offered a plea deal during her pretrial hearing on Monday.
She had been charged as an accessory in the horrific case, but had previously been indicted for capital murder, kidnapping and sexual battery.
She pleaded not guilty in a Mississippi court and was set to stand trial in December.
Despite this, she has since been presented with a plea deal by the Hinds County District Attorney’s Office, according to WJTV.
Cox has yet to accept or decline the deal.
She has until the end of the month to make a decision.
Callihan accepted the same deal in the same court in September.
He pleaded guilty to capital murder, two counts of kidnapping and two counts of sexual battery.
He was sentenced to life in prison without parole on the murder and sexual battery charges by Judge Debra Gibbs.
He also received 30 years on each kidnapping count.
He will serve his sentences consecutively with those he received in Louisiana last month and with any future sentences he is handed in the federal court.
Brunett’s sister, Brandi Hosch, gave an emotional statement at his September sentencing in Hinds County Circuit Court.
As she spoke to the court, she labelled her sister’s murderer as a “demon”.
“We are forever changed in the worst possible way because of you,” she said, according to WLBT.
“You have no soul. You are a demon.
“Not one day goes by that we are not lost, angry, or sickened because of you.”
She continued: “I hope every time you close your eyes, you have nightmares, and you never rest.”
“When you look down at your hands, I hope you can’t unsee what they have done.”
Callihan was arrested on June 13 last year after leading police to the wooded area behind a house where he had dumped Erin’s body.
Her sister was found close by.
A coroner later ruled Erin died from asphyxiation due to suffocation.
Callihan confessed to the crime as he was being taken to jail, appearing to blame his depression medication for his sickening actions.
“I’m on Lexapro. Sober. No drugs in my system. I did it,” he reportedly told the arresting cops.
“I have no reason for what I did.
“All I know is, I want to say I was sober and only on Lexapro… I think it was the side effects of the Lexapro.”
He later said he had been diagnosed with borderline and multiple personality disorders, but that he “was not pretending to be crazy”.
“I would kill me… for what I did,” he said.
“Lethal injection is the easiest thing for me.
“I have only been out of the nut house for two weeks,” he added.
Cox was arrested at a motel nearby on the same day.
Callihan’s neighbours described him as a menace who scared their children.
They claimed he had once allegedly set fire to a shed he was supposedly watching for a friend.
He also allegedly broke into a neighbour’s home while naked and wielding a stolen crossbow.
Jackson Police Chief Joseph Wade said the house in the woods had been linked to human trafficking.
“We [saw] cages, small animal cages,” he said.
“This is very, very disturbing to me as a police chief and as a father to witness and see what I saw.”
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“He tried to do away with the children by taking them into this wooded area,” Wade continued.
“This was a horrible, horribly tragic situation that was committed by the actions of a coward.”