Macon – Bibb County jurors deliberated for about 90 minutes on Thursday before finding a former Monroe County church youth group leader guilty of four counts of child molestation and two counts of enticing a child for indecent purposes.
Jack Lance Hutcheson, 34, was sentenced to serve 60 years, 25 of them in prison, following a four-day trial in Bibb County Superior Court. Hutcheson must serve 20 years before he’s eligible for parole.
Chief Assistant District Attorney Nancy Scott Malcor and Assistant District Attorney Jason Martin presented evidence during the trial showing:
Beginning as early as 2009, Hutcheson led the middle school youth at Sanctuary Baptist Church in Monroe County.
Using his position as a trusted adult, Hutcheson befriended young teenage boys and spent time with two of them, each separately and years apart, away from the rest of the group. He allowed the boys to spend the night at his home in Macon’s Lake Wildwood subdivision.
Both boys testified Hutcheson molested them.
One testified the molestation began when he was about 14 years old, in 2009 and continued for about two years. In 2015, as an adult, he told other trusted adults what had happened after noticing that Hutcheson had befriended another young boy from the youth group. He feared Hutcheson was molesting him as well.
When the second boy, now age 16, was interviewed, he admitted he’d also been molested by Hutcheson. In his case, the molestation began in December 2012.
The case was initially reported to the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office. After it was discovered that the molestation occurred in Bibb County, the Bibb County Sheriff’s Office, assisted by the FBI, launched an investigation.
A search of Hutcheson’s computer revealed multiple images of child pornography featuring middle-school-age boys.
Hutcheson was arrested in January 2016, about five months after he resigned from his post at the church.
Speaking after the trial, Macon Judicial Circuit District Attorney David Cooke said, “As Chief ADA Malcor said in the trial, Mr. Hutcheson was a false prophet in sheep’s clothing. He used his position as a trusted adult to act out his perversions on impressionable young boys. With this sentence, he won’t be able to hurt another child for a very long time.”
J.C. “Chris” Hacker, Special Agent in Charge of FBI Atlanta, said, “The community is safer today with the conviction of Hutcheson, who abused his various professional positions that allowed him close proximity to vulnerable young children. The FBI is committed, and will continue to provide our valued resources to our state partners to play a role in removing predators like Hutcheson from our streets.”
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Contact: Amy Leigh Womack
478-621-6179 (office)
478-319-2529 (cell)