CANTON, Ga. - A judge sentenced a 64-year-old Cherokee County man to four consecutive life sentences plus 120 years in prison after a jury convicted him on 18 charges related to child sex abuse.
District Attorney Susan K. Treadaway said Chief Superior Court Judge David L. Cannon Jr. sentenced John David Elrod on Oct. 6.
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A jury found Elrod guilty of two counts of rape, six counts of aggravated child molestation, eight counts of child molestation and two counts of cruelty to children in the first degree.
According to the district attorney’s office, the charges came from a Canton Police Department investigation that began in August 2018 after a woman reported that Elrod had sexually abused her 9-year-old daughter.
Prosecutors said the girl told a forensic interviewer that the abuse started when she was 6 and happened at two homes in Cherokee County. The abuse continued from 2015 through 2018.
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Assistant District Attorney Meaghan Frankish of the Special Victims Unit prosecuted the case and described Elrod as targeting, grooming and abusing the girl.
Frankish also read an impact statement from the victim, who said she hopes never again to think about what Elrod did to her and that she can finally “go into a new chapter in life and move on from this part.”
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