TIMOTHY LEE HATMAKER SENTENCED TO SERVE 20 YEARS IN PRISON IN ACCORDANCE WITH NEGOTIATED GUILTY PLEA TO CRUELTY TO CHILDREN CRIMES

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 14, 2021

On September 9, 2021, at the Calendar Call for jury trials scheduled before Judge Bill Hamrick for the week of
September 27, 2021, Timothy Lee Hatmaker, 29, of Villa Rica pleaded guilty to two counts of Cruelty to Children in
the First Degree and Aggravated Battery, Family Violence. In accordance with a negotiated plea agreement, Coweta
Judicial Circuit Superior Court Judge Bill Hamrick sentenced Hatmaker to 30 years, with the first 20 years to be
served in prison.

Assistant District Attorney Lara Myers prosecuted the case. Investigator Kimber Biggs of the Carroll County
Sheriff’s Office was the lead investigator.

The charges arose from an incident on March 27, 2019, when deputies responded to Tanner Medical Center in
response to a 6 month old female who had received significant injuries. Once on scene, law enforcement learned
that Hatmaker’s 6 month old daughter had been transported to Tanner having seizures. The infant was later
transported to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta where she was treated for brain bleeds, retinal hemorrhages, and
was found to have healing rib fractures. Deputies began investigating and conducting interviews. During the course
of the investigation, Hatmaker admitted that his daughter had been crying and he threw her down onto the ground,
after which she began screaming and seizing. He also admitted that about two months prior, while she was crying,
he squeezed the child around her chest, that being consistent with the healing injuries observed.

I commend ADA Myers and Investigator Briggs for their hard work and commitment to getting justice for this
defenseless child. This office will seek a substantial prison sentence for any person, like Defendant Hatmaker, who
would so severely harm a child. In this case, justice was served by removing this defendant from free society for
two decades.

JOHN HERBERT CRANFORD, JR.
DISTRICT ATTORNEY
COWETA JUDICIAL CIRCUIT