When she was four and she lived in Baltimore, her uncle would molest her. Then her mother moved her to Fayette County. He came here to visit and molested her again. They moved back to Baltimore.

When she was old enough to understand what had happened to her, she told her mother. Maryland authorities arrested the uncle. Fayette County detective Josh Shelton questioned him. He admitted molesting her in Maryland. He denied doing it in Georgia. Detective Shelton arrested him anyway.

He made bond and returned to Maryland. We indicted in Fayette County. He hired a big-fee Atlanta firm. Then an odd thing happened. The child’s mother refused to bring her down here for trial.

I guess we were supposed to say, “We can’t prosecute without the child here. We’ll just wait and see what Maryland does.”

We didn’t. Instead, we had the mother arrested in Maryland and forced her to comply with our subpoena. Then we flew her and her child here and put them up in a hotel. We flew the Maryland detective here and found him a room. We flew the forensic interviewer here from Maryland and made hotel accommodations for her. Michelle Ivey, our Director of Victim Services, spent her Easter Sunday with the child to be sure she was okay.

The trial began. I approached the defense lawyer to introduce Ben Coker. “You know Ben.” Of course he did; just two weeks earlier Ben had convicted that firm’s drug smuggling client in Spalding County. “He’ll be prosecuting this case.”

One by one the girl’s family members testified that her uncle was innocent. Even her own father. Still, the little girl held her ground. She insisted that her uncle had molested her in Fayette County as well as in Maryland.

Ben Coker stood to deliver his closing argument. You could hear a pin drop as he approached the jury. When he finished and sat down, there were chill bumps on every spine. Spectators and jurors wiped away tears.

When the verdict was read, it was the defendant who was crying. Guilty.

Judge Chris Edwards looked at him. “The sentence I am about to pronounce is the only way that I can be comfortable that there won’t be another little girl that you molest. You can serve twenty years.”

Maryland, he’s yours now. That’s how we do it here.