Man Raped Girl For Years Until She Was 12, Had 'Regular Access' To Victim

A 46-year-old man in Georgia was convicted of rape Friday by a Carroll County jury after sexually abusing a child for several years until 2019.

Mark Anthony Starnes was found guilty of rape, two counts of aggravated child molestation and two counts of child molestation, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

He is scheduled to be sentenced in November.

Evidence showed during the trial that Starnes repeatedly sexually abused and molested the victim from a young age until she was 12 years old, according to District Attorney Herb Cranford of the Coweta Judicial Circuit.

The child was known to Starnes due to his relationship with the victim's mother, and he had "regular access to the victim," Cranford said.

Starnes regularly sexually assaulted the victim when he babysat and stayed the night in the same residence as the victim, according to Cranford.

The abuse stopped in Carroll County in 2019.

According to the evidence presented, the last time Starnes raped and abused the victim in Carroll County was in 2019 when he came up from his new home in Florida to take her and her mother down to the beach.

The investigation into Starnes began in April 2020, when the victim, now 15, told a relative about the abuse, who then told the victim's mother.

The girl's mother reported the abuse to the Carroll Sheriff's Office.

The one tasked to handle the case was investigator Ametrice Jackson of the Carroll County Sheriff's Office. She spoke with the victim, who was 13 at the time.

The girl was examined at the Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, where evidence revealed consistent sexual abuse of the victim, WSB-TV 2 reported.

Starnes was arrested in Florida in July 2020 and extradited to Carroll County.

The victim endured cross-examination during the two-week trial but was able to see justice in the end, Cranford said.

"The young victim persevered through the attacks against her to tell the truth about what she endured," he added. "We're thankful the jury saw the truth in this case and spoke the truth through their verdict by finding Starnes guilty of all counts."