‘I think the system failed our daughter’

From the outside, Jennifer Cobb appeared to be the average girl from Hart County. She loved to make people laugh. She loved animals, especially her German shepherd Abby Gail. She loved the outdoors and the ocean. She loved gymnastics, swimming, skiing, fishing and camping.
Her family however witnessed for the past eight years how a manipulative relationship was pulling her away from the people who loved her most.
Dozens gathered at the courthouse square in Hartwell in the waning hours of Friday night to light candles in remembrance of Jennifer Cobb. The community has been stirred by her death and rallied together for “Justice for Jennifer.”
Cobb, 20, was the alleged victim of grooming and sexual abuse at the hands of Jeremy “Bob” Green for more than eight years. Cobb was found dead on June 30 and her death is still being investigated.
Green, 36, was arrested on June 15 and charged with criminal attempt to commit a felony, enticing a child for indecent purposes, statutory rape, sodomy and child molestation.                                                                
“Jennifer was just starting to put the painful events of being groomed and sexually abused from age 12 to 20 behind her,” Jennifer’s mother Susan Cobb said at the vigil. “She made her decision to testify and was looking forward to telling her story and protecting others. Her hopes were to prevent this from happening to another child.”
Grooming, a tool used to sexually abuse kids, is manipulative behaviors that an abuser uses to gain access to a potential victim, coerce them to agree to the abuse, and reduce the risk of being caught, according to RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network). It’s usually employed by a family member or someone else in the victim’s circle of trust, such as a coach, teacher, youth group leader or others who naturally have some interaction with the victim.
“Grooming allows offenders to slowly overcome natural boundaries long before abuse occurs,” Susan said. “On the surface, grooming a child can look like a close relationship between the offending adult, the targeted child, and potentially the child’s caregivers.”
Green was a gymnastics instructor at the YMCA in Hartwell where he allegedly  began grooming 12-year-old Jennifer, one of his gymnastics students.
Before her passing, Jennifer was able to confront her alleged offender at a bond hearing for Green, heard before Judge Harvey Wasserman on June 24.
At the bond hearing, District Attorney of the Northern Judicial Circuit Parks White went into further details surrounding Green’s charges. Later, Susan Cobb also spoke with The Hartwell Sun and recounted what it was like for her family during this time.
Susan said the grooming began when Jennifer started gymnastics at the YMCA and Green was a coach. Green began giving Jennifer candy and clothes to win her affection.
“They compliment them and earn their trust,” Susan said. “They just gradually build that trust up.”
According to White, Green began touching Jennifer in a sexual manner and soliciting sexual images over the phone when Jennifer was 12 years old. White said the sodomy began around this time.
When Jennifer was 14, Green “lured her from her home” to have sex, according to White. This allegedly happened when Green was on leave from active duty in the United States Army.
White said this was investigated once by the Hart County Sheriff’s Office when Jennifer’s brother saw Jennifer sitting on Green’s lap with his hand in her pants. A forensic interview was done at the time, but Jennifer did not disclose at that time that anything had happened according to White.
“Without Jennifer saying that Bob did that, there was nothing that they could do even though my son was 18 years old,” Susan said. “I just think it is ludicrous that you would expect a 14-year-old who is being groomed or molested to tell.”
Susan found out that between that incident and when Jennifer turned 18, her and Green were meeting secretly.
Susan said Jennifer had trichotillomania, also known as hair-pulling disorder, and it appeared when Jennifer was 12 years old.
“I realized every time she pulled her hair, he was back in her life,” Susan said.
At 18, Jennifer moved out of her parent’s home before moving in with her godmother, and a few months later, with Green. They also became engaged at one point, according to White.
“We knew that he had taken advantage of her for so long that he had brain-washed her,” Susan said. “One by one, he had taken her away from every friend that she had and separated her from her family.”
White said after living together for a year, Jennifer’s “suspicions were raised regarding Mr. Green and this lustful disposition towards children” when she saw Green interacting inappropriately with other children and sexual phone messages with another girl who still lived with her parents. Susan said Jennifer had seen Green talking to the girl the same way he had talked to her and the girl said she was “grounded.”
White also said they had additional warrants on Green for kidnapping and aggravated sexual assault regarding another girl who was 16 at the time. Green allegedly took this girl into the locker room of the YMCA during a sleepover and committed sexual battery. He then invited her to his house where he carried her from the living room to the bedroom against her will and digitally penetrated her. However, White said because this event occurred in 2008 and the victim was already 16, the statute of limitations had run for those offenses.
White said the reason they oppose a bond is because more victims have come forward and Green would “pose a likelihood of interfering with this investigation” by convincing his victims to destroy evidence if released.
“She had several phones through the years that were destroyed,” Susan said, referring to her daughter. “We just thought she was careless, but she finally admitted that he had her destroy those phones.”
White said Jennifer indicated she was scared Green might hurt her to prevent her from being able to testify in a trial.
Green’s attorney, Nancee Tomlinson, called two witnesses forward to testify on Green’s character, Gary McCurley and Ryan Winne, both pastors at Green’s church, Encounter Church. They both attested to knowing Green for many years.
“I have always found him to be honorable, to have integrity,” McCurley said.
Both pastors were asked if they had learned Green had inappropriate relations with underage girl, would their opinion of him change. McCurley said he did not think so while Winne refused to answer the hypothetical question.
“Do I think he’s a threat? No. Will I love, respect, and value Jeremy regardless? Yes. That’s what I’ll say,” Winne said.
Susan said she was unaware she could have a character witness for Jennifer, the way Green did, or  they would have had “a whole courtroom full.”
“I know that that hurt Jennifer because she had gone to that church and neither of them had even acknowledged her,” Susan said.
Jennifer spoke at the bond hearing. She said that she had witnessed Green inappropriately touching the son and daughter of his co-worker, who worked with Green at a lawn maintenance company.
“I don’t just worry about myself. I worry about other girls,” Jennifer said. “There was one time that [Green’s co-worker] and his wife came over to the house with their kids. They were doing a Rainbow vacuum show and the way that he had the younger son sitting in his lap.. How he was holding his legs and smelling the back of his neck; that’s not normal. So I don’t think it would be a great idea for him to go back and work with those same people.”
Judge Wasserman then asked, “You’re not saying this because you’re jealous, right? That you broke up with him?”
Jennifer responded that the only reason she was speaking is because she didn’t want this to happen to anybody else.
Situations like Jennifer’s are not uncommon. According to RAINN, one in nine girls and one in 53 boys under the age of 18 experience sexual abuse or assault at the hands of an adult. The effects of the abuse can be long-lasting with victims being about four times more likely to develop symptoms of drug abuse, four times more likely to experience PTSD as adults and three times more likely to experience a major depressive episode as adults.
Wasserman granted Green a commercial bond in the amount of $250,000 with the conditions that he has to wear an ankle monitor, he is under complete house arrest, no cell phone, he is barred from contacting any one he taught at the YMCA  or witnesses or victims in this case and his Fourth Amendment rights were waived.
Susan said that after Jennifer left Green, she was beginning to move on with her life. She was planning to go to school to become a cosmetologist and was offered an internship at Rebecca Walden’s Wig Studio in Atlanta, which focuses on wigs for cancer patients and women with alopecia. She also got another German shepherd, who she named Ava, and was looking forward to training her as a service animal.
However, Susan said after the bond hearing, Jennifer was “devastated” and could not understand how he was out on bond.
“She felt like he was the hero still and she was just a nobody,” Susan said. “That what she had to say did not matter.”
Since Jennifer has come out, there have been numerous others who have come out about Green abusing them, Susan said.
Susan wants people to know how to identify grooming to stop children from being abused in the future.
“Our goal is educate the community about grooming and how it happens,” Susan said. “I would like for it to be taught more in the schools. I would like it to be taught more at places like the Y and in gyms, even doctor’s offices and hospitals. I think it needs to be taught more than it is because I don’t think people understand it; they don’t identify it and therefore it doesn’t get stopped.”
Susan said many people had seen Green do something inappropriate but didn’t do anything and said, “that’s just Bob.”
For more information on sexual abuse and the warning signs of grooming visit the RAINN website at rainn.org.
If you have any information on this case call GBI agent Katie Walker at 706-552-2309.
“I think the system failed our daughter,” Susan said. “I don’t want the system to fail another child here, in this town or this state. My goal is to do all I can to educate, hopefully get laws changed because I can never get her back.”
Jennifer’s story went viral in the past few weeks on several Hartwell social media accounts, prompting a local movement called “Justice for Jennifer Cobb.” A GoFundMe by that name, set up by family friend Debbie Fitzpatrick, had raised more than $10,000 by Tuesday night. A post on the page said funds will go towards funeral, autopsy and legal expenses.