A Marion County judge sentenced a former middle school teacher and Army veteran to five and a half years in prison for breaking the bones of his twin infant children and for stuffing a gag into one of the baby’s mouths hard enough to cause injuries.
Judge Courtland Geyer handed down the sentence to Reece A. Sorenson, 29, on Friday after he pleaded guilty in July to five counts of first-degree criminal mistreatment, court records show.
In addition to previously serving as an Army reservist, court records show, Sorenson was also a teacher; the Salem-Keizer School District didn’t immediately respond to The Oregonian/OregonLive’s questions but said in previous statements that Sorenson taught at Parrish Middle School in Salem until the district put him on administrative leave in August 2025 following the abuse allegations. He resigned his position later that month, the district said.
Court records show that officials began investigating Sorenson Aug. 10, 2025, after Sorenson’s abuse of his infant children the night before landed them in the hospital.
Around 2 a.m. that morning, Sorenson got up to feed his son and daughter when his daughter started crying — but instead of trying to soothe her, Sorenson shoved a burp cloth into her mouth to “muffle the sound waves” while he fed his son, he told investigators later.
Medical staff later found that he’d shoved the rag into the infant’s mouth hard enough to make her mouth bleed, as well as damage the underside of her tongue badly enough she couldn’t feed properly, court records show.
But Sorenson didn’t stop at the single burp cloth, court records show, and he shoved another rag into her mouth to gag her in the style he’d learned from the “military and too many action movies,” he later told medical staff.
The injuries to the baby’s mouth prevented her from eating, and by 7 a.m. the next morning she still wouldn’t feed, so Sorenson and his wife decided to take her to a pediatrician, court records say.
The pediatrician recommended they go to a hospital, and despite Sorenson’s evasive explanation of the situation, staff eventually got him to share some of the truth of what had unfolded hours earlier, court records show.
Staff also learned that Sorenson’s daughter wasn’t the only infant with concerning injuries, court records show. Medical personnel saw that his son had bruises around both his eyes, and X-rays revealed he had 12 rib fractures, court records show.
The discovery prompted staff to dig deeper into the daughter’s injuries as well, and the following X-rays showed that both her collarbones had been broken and she had four rib fractures, court records show.
Hospital staff escalated the discovery to law enforcement, and investigators gathered enough evidence for Marion County prosecutors to bring a case against Sorenson. During the criminal proceedings against him, Sorenson called the abuse a “poor choice” on his part, but medical imaging determined that his abuse wasn’t constrained to a single incident: the abuse, investigators concluded, had happened over an extended period of time.
Sorenson has no prior convictions in Oregon, court records show. He will serve three years of post-prison supervision after he gets out of prison in half a decade.
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