A woman was found guilty Wednesday of murder, among other charges, for stabbing her 1-year-old daughter to death in Cherokee County in 2020, though the verdict acknowledged she was mentally ill at the time.
The Blue Ridge Judicial Circuit’s District Attorney’s Office said 24-year-old Chloe Driver was a member of a cult when she killed her daughter on Dec. 8, 2020. Hannah Nicole Driver, who was fathered by a man in the group named Brian Joyce, was 13 months old when she died, according to court documents.
Chloe Driver has been held in the Cherokee jail without bond since she was booked nearly four years ago, according to jail records.
The Cherokee jury deliberated for less than three hours Wednesday before returning their verdict, the DA’s office said. They found that Driver was mentally ill but guilty of committing murder, aggravated assault and first-degree cruelty to children, according to court records.
Early in the case, Driver’s attorneys filed notice that they planned to pursue an insanity defense, court records show. According to Georgia law, a verdict of guilty but mentally ill means the defendant will still be sentenced and may be incarcerated in “an appropriate penal facility” where they will be evaluated and treated for their illness.
The court scheduled Driver’s sentencing hearing for Dec. 12.
Credit: Cherokee County Sheriff's Office
Credit: Cherokee County Sheriff's Office
“No matter how hopeless you feel, no matter how desperate you feel, no matter how angry you feel, no matter how frustrated you feel, you don’t get to commit the act of murder, and that is the law,” the prosecutor, Chief Assistant District Attorney Katie Gropper, said in her closing argument. “That was a violent, heinous, horrible way to die. And I don’t care how bad your life is, you do not get to do that to this baby girl and there be no consequences for you. She chose that life. Hannah did not. Hold her responsible.”
On the day Driver killed her daughter, Canton police officers were called to a home on Mountain Vista Boulevard around 2:30 p.m., The Atlanta Journal-Constitution previously reported. Prosecutors said Driver locked herself in a bedroom with the baby and a kitchen knife, then stabbed the child in the neck before stabbing herself.
Police said they found Driver and her child both suffering from stab wounds and took them to separate hospitals. The girl later died at Northside Hospital Cherokee, while Driver was treated at Wellstar Kennestone Hospital and later booked into the Cherokee jail.
According to her arrest warrants, Driver admitted to police that she killed her daughter. Originally from Knoxville, Tennessee, she was living a nomadic lifestyle while in a relationship with Joyce, court documents show. The DA’s office said Driver, Joyce, their baby and three other adults stopped at the Canton home together on their way to North Carolina. Police said the group had recently also traveled to Florida, Rhode Island and Tennessee.
Though the DA’s office described the group as a cult, no other details were provided about its nature.
At the beginning of the trial, Driver’s attorneys filed a motion claiming she was suffering a psychotic episode when the stabbing took place. They said her symptoms included paranoia, delusional beliefs and hallucinations, and that she told her companions she’d been hearing voices and made threats to harm herself and others in the weeks before the killing.
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