Immediately prior to commencing with a jury trial, on June 23, 2025, in the Superior Court of Coweta County, Dalton Allen Ramsey, now 31, of Buckhannon, WV, pleaded guilty to one count of Rape, one count of Kidnapping, four counts of Aggravated Assault, one count of Possession of a Knife during Commission of a Felony, and one count of Sexual Exploitation of Children. Rather than proceeding with a jury trial, Ramsey opted for a non-negotiated guilty plea before visiting Senior Superior Court Judge Matthew Simmons, who after a sentencing hearing, ordered that Ramsey serve life in prison, with the possibility of parole. Under Georgia law, such a sentence requires Ramsey to serve thirty years in prison prior to being eligible for consideration for release on parole.
Sr. Assistant District Attorney Magen Bateman prosecuted the case. Investigators with the Coweta County Sheriff’s Office, in tandem with the Habersham County Sheriff’s Office, investigated the case.
Should Ramsey have elected to proceed to trial, the evidence would have shown the following:
On September 5, 2022, Ramsey, who was 28, began corresponding on social media with the victim, who was 17 and whom he did not otherwise know. The next day, Ramsey traveled from Buckhannon, WV to the Columbus, GA area—an approximately eleven hour drive—purportedly to give her a ride out of state at her request, while assuring the victim that he only intended to help her with transportation. After picking the victim up, Ramsey drove her to the BT Brown Reservoir in Coweta County, where he strangled the victim, bound her hands with tape, and forcibly raped her at knifepoint.
After raping her in Coweta County, Ramsey drove the victim northbound against her will. Unbeknownst to Ramsey, the victim was able to communicate with emergency personnel via text, which enabled law enforcement to identify and find Ramsey’s vehicle. Approximately two hours north of the Coweta County incident location, Habersham County Sheriff’s Office deputies stopped the vehicle and arrested Ramsey. Consistent with the victim’s immediate statement to the officers who stopped the vehicle, those officers seized knives, tape, rope, and other physical evidence of the crimes from the vehicle.
Subsequent investigation by Coweta County Sheriff’s Office investigators found child sexual abuse videos and images on Ramsey’s phone. The investigation revealed—in the days prior to kidnapping the victim—Ramsey communicated with the providers of this child pornography his specific request for “rape porn.” Among the many disturbing images on Ramsey’s phone were videos of the rape of children.