The boy escaped at age 11 by breaking through a closet wall and jumping from a second-story window, prosecutors said.
NEWNAN, Ga. — A Georgia woman has been sentenced to 40 years in prison after pleading guilty to charges stemming from years of abuse of her adopted son, who escaped from her home at age 11 by breaking through a closet wall and jumping from a second-story window, prosecutors said.
Chloe Jackson-Jones, 42, pleaded guilty Sept. 30 in Coweta County Superior Court to aggravated assault by strangulation, two counts of false imprisonment and 17 counts of first-degree cruelty to children. She was sentenced to 40 years in prison followed by 20 years of probation under a negotiated plea agreement, according to prosecutors.
The case became public after the boy escaped Jackson-Jones’ Newnan home on July 5, 2023. Prosecutors said he had been locked inside a bedroom closet when he began tearing through the sheetrock. After making an opening through the wall, he reached the bedroom and escaped through a second-story window.
A neighborhood resident later saw the boy walking along the street and called 911 after learning that he was hungry, prosecutors said. Authorities said the child weighed 61 pounds at the time. Newnan police began an investigation, and the boy was placed in the custody of the Georgia Division of Family and Children Services.
Investigators determined that Jackson-Jones had adopted the boy in May 2019, when he was 8 years old. Prosecutors said abusive treatment began early and became increasingly systematic after 2020, when she removed the child from public school for virtual learning. They said she later described his education as homeschooling, further limiting his regular contact with people outside the home.
Evidence recovered during the investigation included photographs and videos from Jackson-Jones’ cellphone, according to prosecutors. Authorities said the material supported the child’s account that he had been denied food, restrained, confined inside a closet and forced to remain in physically difficult positions for long periods. Prosecutors also said he had been physically assaulted and strangled until he lost consciousness.
Each of the 17 first-degree cruelty-to-children counts represented a separate act, prosecutors said. Jackson-Jones also admitted guilt to the aggravated assault and false imprisonment charges. Because the case ended with a guilty plea, prosecutors did not have to present the full evidence to a jury or require the child to testify at trial.
The Coweta Judicial Circuit District Attorney’s Office said avoiding a trial that would have required the boy to recount the abuse was one reason prosecutors accepted the negotiated sentence. District Attorney Herb Cranford said his office would have sought a life sentence if Georgia law had permitted that punishment for the offenses involved.
The boy is now 14 and gave a victim-impact statement during the sentencing proceeding, prosecutors said. Authorities did not publicly release the contents of his statement. The district attorney’s office said he is living in a stable home and doing well in school more than three years after the escape that brought the abuse to the attention of authorities.
Jackson-Jones now faces decades in state custody followed by probation. Her guilty plea resolves the criminal prosecution without a trial, while the boy’s identity remains protected because he was a minor victim of abuse.
Author note: Last updated October 9, 2026.