Marietta Couple Indicted for Child Molestation

A Cobb grand jury has indicted a Marietta man and a woman half his age for child cruelty and molestation, among a slew of other charges.

Brian Deshawn Phillips, 46, and Elizabeth Anne Cooley, 23, are accused of working in concert to molest an underage girl at an extended-stay hotel on Canton Road, near the Canton Road Connector and Interstate 75, over a period of two years.

Phillips is also accused of molesting other women at various locations throughout Cobb across that two-year span.

Of the 27 charges under which Phillips and Cooley are listed as co-defendants, they include charges of aggravated child molestation, trafficking persons for sexual servitude, rape and first degree cruelty to children.

According to a warrant for Phillips' arrest, he is accused of molesting a girl under the age of 16 by forcing her to perform various sex acts on him between January of 2021 and July of 2023 at the hotel on Canton Road.

Another warrant alleges Phillips sexually assaulted other underage girls from 2021 to 2023 at various different locations throughout Cobb, including an extended-stay hotel on Busbee Parkway, an apartment complex in Smyrna and other locations in Kennesaw and Marietta.

Phillips is also accused in that warrant of burglary for allegedly breaking into the home of a woman he then sexually assaulted.

Cooley is accused in a separate warrant of assisting Phillips in one of those acts between January 2021 and January 2022.

In another indictment handed down last week, Phillips is charged with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and possession of more than an ounce of marijuana.

In a different warrant from those detailing his alleged sex crimes, police wrote that Phillips was convicted in Broward County, Florida, in October 2003 of child fondling. Marietta police say they found a pistol on Phillips upon his arrest, hence the charge of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.

Police wrote in the warrant they also found more than 30 grams of what they suspected was marijuana in Phillips' nightstand at his Marietta apartment.

According to jail records from the Cobb County Sheriff's Office, Phillips and Cooley share a residence at the Laurel Hills Preserve Apartments on Bells Ferry Road, just southeast of Town Center mall.

Both were arrested Jan. 30 and have been held at the Cobb County Adult Detention Center without bond since their arrests, jail records indicate.