Ex-Cult Leader, Cobb Resident, Sentenced For Murder Of Toddler

EAST COBB, GA — A former East Cobb resident who once led a Florida cult was sentenced Wednesday to spend the rest of her life in prison for the murder of a toddler more than three decades ago.

Anna Elizabeth Young, 79, co-founder of the House of Prayer for All People in Micanopy, Florida, was sentenced to 30 years after she pleaded guilty to the murder, according to a news release from Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody.

Authorities arrested Young in 2017 at her home on Bridgestone Drive in Marietta for the murder of Emon Harper, a toddler Young is alleged to have starved, beaten and confined to a closet. According to Moody’s news release, Harper was eventually found unresponsive in a hamper inside Young’s closet.

Young — also known as "Mother Anna" — previously had served six months in jail for child abuse after bathing a 12-year-old in bleach, then tying the child to bedposts so open sores couldn’t be reached.

For about 15 years before her most recent arrest, Young lived in Marietta. Allegations that Young had murdered Harper surfaced when Young’s daughter disclosed her mother’s conduct and other cult members corroborated the daughter’s story. A Florida grand jury indicted Young in November 2017, and she was arrested the next day in Georgia, By that time, Young had remarried and was living under the last name Anderson, according to The Marietta Daily Journal.

Young and her husband at the time started House of Prayer in 1983, in which members wore full-length robes and adhered to Old Testament standards. At the cult’s peak, 24 members lived on its Florida compound.

“Thankfully, at 79 years old, she will most likely die in prison and never again be able to harm, torture or kill another human being,” Moody said Wednesday in a statement. “I am grateful for the hard work from my statewide prosecutors in securing a strong prison sentence for this downright vile criminal.”

Read the story in The Marietta Daily Journal.