A Cobb County judge has sentenced a former engineer at Lockheed Martin to 20 years in prison after he was convicted of molesting two girls —with one of the crimes dating back 17 years.
Prosecutor Hannah Palmquist asked for a severe sentence so the defendant “is not able to ever lay hands” on another child. “These crimes are some of the most personal and violating in nature,” she said.
A jury took 40 minutes to convict Tracy Bothel King, 59, of Powder Springs, last month on three counts of child molestation involving two victims who were each about age 5 at the time of the crime, said District Attorney Vic Reynolds.
A victim, now age 10, was molested between 2008 and 2010 at an Acworth residence, Reynolds said. The other girl, whose current age was not given by the DA, was molested in 1997 and 1998 at a Marietta home.
The crimes were reported to Cobb Police in 2012, Reynolds said.
Both victims testified, as did another woman who said King abused her as a young child. King was not charged with crimes against that victim because too many years had passed for the case to be prosecuted by law.
“All three victims gave similar details of things Mr. King said to them during the acts, such as pleading or threatening them, and urging them not to tell or else he would get in trouble,” Reynolds said in a prepared statement.
King had his supporters at sentencing who testified that they had never seen anything in decades to indicate that he was a child molester, much less a serial one. That did not sway Superior Court Judge Henry Thompson, who said that friends and relatives don’t want to believe they “grew up in the same house with or are friends with a monster,” Reynolds said.
“Anyone who heard that testimony (of the 10-year-old girl) whose heart wasn’t broken doesn’t have a heart,” Reynolds quoted the judge as saying.
Thompson then sentenced King to 40 years, with 20 years to serve in custody followed by 20 years on probation.
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