Documentary record Bound by Fear
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Conviction Christian institutions & contexts Other or denomination not established Cobb County, Georgia, USA · 2026

United States: Cobb County church leader sentenced to 25 years for grooming a teen through a new youth group

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Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

leadership role, Worship With Wonders Church

Organization

Worship With Wonders Church, Cobb County

Archive classification

This is the archive's application of its published inclusion test. The cited record appears below.

Turner used a leadership position at Worship With Wonders Church to found a new youth group, recruited the victim into it, and used the trust and access that role generated to groom and abuse him over several months.

  • Pastoral or clerical authority
  • Institutional obedience or isolation

Evidence structure

Proceedings

  1. 2026-02-09 · guilty plea and sentence

    Superior Court, Cherokee County, Georgia (Blue Ridge Judicial Circuit). Turner pleaded guilty to 11 counts including two counts of aggravated child molestation, two counts of child molestation, enticing a child, obscene internet contact with a child, four counts of sexual exploitation of children, and cruelty to children; sentenced to 25 years without parole plus lifetime probation.

Documented coercion mechanisms

  • invitation into a newly formed church youth group as the access point
  • sustained one-on-one contact normalized through the youth-group role

Cited record

Sources

local television da statement criminal disposition 11Alive (WXIA), "DA: Former Cobb Co. church director sentenced to 25 years after pleading guilty to sex crimes involving teen boy" (Feb. 2026).

District attorney's office statement, reported by 11Alive, confirming Turner's guilty plea to all 11 counts, the 25-year sentence without parole, and the youth-group grooming method.

official prosecutorial record criminal disposition Cherokee County District Attorney's Office, press release on Marcus Turner guilty plea (Feb. 2026).

Official prosecutorial press release detailing the counts of conviction, sentence and case background.

local television court reporting corroboration FOX 5 Atlanta, "'I trusted the pastors': Mother of victim speaks out after church leader sentenced."

Victim's family interview corroborating the church-youth-group access mechanism and the sentence imposed.

Source provenance

Source access and integrity log

This log records source retrieval and file integrity. It does not mean that an automated process independently confirmed every statement in the source.

Retrieval
2026-07-27 · Retrieval failed
Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger
Source and tier basis
https://www.cherokeecountyga.gov/District-Attorneys-Office/_resources/Press-Releases/2026-Pres-Releases/022026-Marcus-Turner-guilty-plea.pdf Corpus classification: official-prosecutorial-record; evidentiary role: criminal-disposition. SHA-256 72b9bd5008986b214e4cd889b277c093c70755c6a23f5540017676332fcbeb87
Retrieval
2026-07-20 · Preserved
Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger
Source and tier basis
https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/i-trusted-pastors-mother-victim-speaks-out-after-church-leader-sentenced Corpus classification: local-television-court-reporting; evidentiary role: corroboration. SHA-256 b6a74c36a828df41583bb95f03ebf8fdded823322bb04b9bf69a25f0cd0a68ed
Retrieval
2026-07-20 · Preserved
Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger

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