Georgia father pleads guilty to murder of 2 children found buried in yard, gets life without parole

The father of two Georgia siblings whose bodies were found buried in his yard has pleaded guilty to their murders.

In court earlier this week, Elwyn Crocker Sr. entered a guilty plea for the charges of murder, aggravated sexual battery, cruelty to children, false imprisonment, and concealing the death of another for the killings of Elwyn Crocker Jr. and Mary Frances Crocker.

Effingham County sheriff's deputies found the children's bodies in December 2018 after a tip brought authorities to their father's mobile home. Investigators said 14-year-old Mary had been dead for roughly two months. Her older brother had also been 14 when last seen about two years earlier. Both children were home-schooled, and no one reported them missing.

Sheriff's investigator Abby Brown testified at a 2019 bond hearing that Mary Crocker was starved, beaten, and kept bound and naked in a dog crate as punishment by her father and stepfamily before she died. 

Brown testified that investigators found a photo of Mary — nude, gaunt and bruised — in front of the cage. She said the girl's father confessed that Mary had been starved, beaten and confined there as a form of punishment before her death.

"He did admit that Mary Crocker was, in fact, kept in a dog kennel, naked, in the kitchen, the common area of the house," Brown testified. She said zip ties were used "so that she would not get out."

Mary's meals were often mixed with rice vinegar to spoil the taste and make eating nearly impossible, and sometimes she was shocked with a stun gun, she said.

Toward the end of her life, Brown said, the girl spent so much time in the cage that her joints would stiffen, prompting family members to use duct tape to bind her to a ladder in an effort to straighten her arms and legs.

Later indictments said Elwyn Crocker Jr. suffered similar treatment.

Elwyn Crocker Sr. is the final suspect charged in the case to be sentenced. Four others, including the children's stepmother, had pleaded guilty and were sentenced to life without parole or decades in prison. One of those, Roy Prater, died in custody earlier this year.

Following his guilty plea, a judge sentenced Elwyn Crocker Sr. to two sentences of life without parole, a sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole, and 120 years in prison.

Life in prison, but no death penalty

In a press release, Ogeechee Judicial Circuit District Attorney Robert Busbee acknowledged that many in the community wanted the case to go to trial and for prosecutors to pursue the death penalty.

"Those feelings are valid. This case has carried immense weight for years, and the desire for the fullest measure of justice is something we all share," Busbee wrote. "However, it is important for the public to understand that our decisions are not guided by what is ideal, but what is achievable, sustainable, and certain under the law."

The prosecutor said that death penalty prosecutions are the "most difficult" and have heightened legal scrutiny and appeals that would make an already-complex case, delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, extremely challenging.

Busbee also pointed to Prater's death, saying that he was a key witness, and the departure of two prosecutors who were involved in preparing the case for trial.

"Even with the death penalty, true justice was never on the table compared to what those children experienced," he wrote. "While this resolution may not bring closure in the way a trial might have, it does bring finality."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.