ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) - A Walton County couple will spend the rest of their lives in jail without parole after being convicted of sexually abusing their two adopted children.

The Alcovy Judicial Circuit District Attorney’s Office, which oversees Walton and Newton counties, said William and Zachary Zulock were convicted of the following charges:

• William Zulock: six counts of aggravated sodomy, three counts of aggravated child molestation, two counts of sexual exploitation of children and other sexual offenses.
• Zachary Zulock: two counts of aggravated sodomy, three counts of aggravated child molestation, two counts of sodomy, three counts of sexual exploitation of children, two counts of pandering for a person under 18 and other sexual offenses.

William pleaded guilty to all the crimes in August. In October, Zachary also pled guilty to every charge except one, which he was found guilty of after a bench trial, the district attorney’s office said.

Both were sentenced by a judge last Thursday.

“It cannot be stressed enough how important it is for our society to have individuals willing to adopt children in need. But anyone who does so and then abuses those children deserves extremely harsh consequences and decades in prison,” said Randy McGinley, district attorney of the Alcovy Judicial Circuit. “The sentence imposed not only appropriately punishes these defendants for their repeated selfish actions but also sends the message to the public that such actions will never be taken lightly.”

The Walton County Sheriff’s Office began investigating the case in July 2022, when the GBI’s Exploitation and Computer Crimes Unit contacted deputies about a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The tip was about suspected homemade child sexual abuse material that was uploaded to a Google account and connected to an IP address in Walton County.

Deputies searched the home associated with the IP address and found Hunter Lawless, who admitted to the crime and said he received the material from Zachary. Lawless pled guilty to sexual exploitation of children and was sentenced to 20 years, with the first 12 to be served in prison.

Investigators then searched the Zulock’s home, where they lived with two young boys they adopted a few years before. During an interview, both men admitted to sexually abusing the children, the district attorney’s office said.

Law enforcement reviewed two weeks of footage from the home’s interior surveillance cameras, which showed several acts of abuse in different parts of the house. Their cell phones also had graphic material and text and social media messages about the abuse, according to the district attorney’s office.

A cell phone review found that Zach had sent messages to Luis Vizcarro-Sanchez about the abuse. Vizcarro-Sanchez pled guilty to pandering for a person under 18. After also pleading guilty to stealing computers from his workplace, a Kroger in Loganville, he was sentenced to 16 years, with the first 15 to be served in prison.

“These two defendants truly created a house of horrors and put their extremely dark desires above everything and everyone else,” McGinley said. “However, the depth of the defendants’ depravity, which is as deep as it gets, is not greater than the resolve of those that fought for justice and the strength of the victims in this case. The resolve I have seen from these two young victims over the last two years is truly inspiring.”

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