Upon hearing noises in his stepdaughter’s bedroom during the night, a local man and his wife opened the door to find a man in the 15-year-old’s bed.
The man in the bed, later identified as Landon Cornelius Bonner, 20, of Eatonton, was engaged in sexual relations with the young teen, according to Putnam County Sheriff Howard Sills.
“Upon being discovered, Bonner exclaimed ‘my bad’ and immediately fled from the home on foot,” Sills said.
The girl’s parents called the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office around 2:30 a.m. Friday, Dec. 12, and Bonner was nowhere to be found when deputies arrived at the Bluegill Road home. That same day, Deputy Cpl. Chris Donovan obtained warrants for Bonner’s arrest and began searching for him.
“Cpl. Donovan followed up on this and eventually located Bonner at his mother’s house,” Sills said. “Donovan did a great job on handling this investigation, gathering all the evidence we needed, and then finding him; he did a great job.”
“During the investigation, it was discovered that this had been going on for some time,” Sills added.
Bonner and the girl were involved in a mutual relationship, and he had repeatedly snuck into the house at night after her parents went to sleep, the sheriff said.
Bonner was arrested Dec. 17 on two counts of aggravated sexual battery, two counts of felony first-degree burglary, two counts of child molestation, and one count of felony statutory rape. He remains in Putnam County Jail without bond.