COBB COUNTY, Ga. — U.S. marshals arrested a 75-year-old woman in Cobb County in connection with the death of a toddler more than 25 years ago.
Authorities say Anna Elizabeth Young is a former cult leader who murdered a 3-year-old boy in Florida in 1992.
Young was arrested Friday at her Marietta home.
Police say she ran a religious boarding school in Florida during the late 1980s.
An indictment obtained by Channel 2’s Matt Johnson alleges Young killed the boy by starving him and keeping him in a cage from 1988 to 1992.
Her neighbors on Bridgestone Drive were shocked by the arrest.
“If you look at the house, it just represents God. Somebody that is God-fearing,” a neighbor said of Young’s religious decorations adorning the Marietta home. “I never would have thought that she was a murderer.”
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Neighbors say Young and her husband kept to themselves.
“If somebody is running from a murder, it is more the reason they stayed so reserved, shallow, to themselves,” a neighbor said.
Young had already served prison time for bathing a 12-year-old with chemicals that caused severe burns.
In the new case, a grand jury indicted her when witnesses and victims recently came forward.
"It's not just one isolated incident of beatings. There were numerous children that were beaten, locked in solitary confinement, food withheld,” said Art Forgey with the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office.
Neighbors told Johnson that Young had been living in the Marietta home for at least 10 years. They say they can't look at the house the same way again.
“To take somebody's life and your life is not at risk, you're just taking somebody's life. That's wrong,” a neighbor said.
Cox Media Group
