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A man recently convicted of beating three women with a baseball bat was sentenced Thursday morning to serve 105 years in prison.

“This defendant should never be released,” Senior Judge Jon Kerry Blackwood said in Blount County Circuit Court.

Anthony Todd Ghormley was found guilty in September of two counts of attempted first-degree murder, three counts of aggravated assault, one count of especially aggravated kidnapping and one count of especially aggravated burglary.

The conviction stems from a September 2007 incident in which Ghormley beat his now ex-wife Karen Vandyke, Vandyke's cousin Candy Bussey and her grandmother Gaynell Head with an aluminium baseball bat. Ghormley then held Head hostage for several hours.

“It is really a wonder that (Head) survived this assault,” Blackwood said.

Ghormley's court-appointed attorney Kevin Shepherd told the judge that his client was not mentally stable enough to take the stand this morning in the sentencing hearing because he had not been given his anti-psychotic medications.

He requested that the sentencing be put off until Ghormley could get his medicine, but the Blackwood denied that request.

Shepherd said after the sentencing that he has filed a motion for a new trial and will ask for the conviction to be thrown out.

If that motion is denied the case will go to circuit court for appeal, Shepherd said.