Austell man receives eight-year sentence for molesting two girls

Cobb County District Attorney Flynn Broady Jr. announced that an Austell man, Guy Richard Houze, has been sentenced to eight years in prison for molesting two girls. 

Houze, 72, pled guilty to two counts of child molestation and will serve seven years of probation following his eight-year prison sentence.

Broady’s office said that in January 2020, a 12-year-old girl disclosed to the Georgia Division of Family & Children Services that Houze, her step-grandfather, had been molesting her. 

DFSC reported and referred the case to Cobb police. Detectives interviewed both the girl and her sister. The older sister said Houz, her step-grandfather, frequently molested her between the age of five and 12, and she told detectives it made her feel disgusted and that she would go numb when it happened. 

The younger sister told detectives Houze molested her from the time she was seven years old to 11 years old. Detectives interviewed the girls’ mother and then Houze. He was then arrested. 

Cobb Superior Court Judge Sonja Brown presided over the non-negotiated sentencing hearing. Family and friends of the two sisters were in attendance at court as the older sister spoke to Judge Brown saying, “This man took my innocence and robbed me of what little chance I had to have a normal childhood. He did this awful thing to me and yet, I seemed to be the one dealing with the repercussions. I know that today I may leave with some of this burden, which was never mine to bear, unloaded from me.”

Also read during the hearing were Statements from the younger sister and the girls’ mother. Judge Brown called Houze’s behavior “egregious and heinous.” Brown said,“In cases where there is sexual abuse, there usually aren’t other people seeing it. That doesn’t mean that it didn’t happen. This sentence won’t fix or heal this. It will not make this family whole again, but there has to be some serious consequences.”

He is required to register as a sex offender and abide by the sex offender conditions of probation.

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