Bulloch County Sheriff’s Office investigators and deputies arrested Kenneth Moreno Guzman, 26, Thursday afternoon for allegedly invading a family’s mobile home early Monday, Jan. 12, raping an 11-year-old girl and holding her and her 10-year-old sister at knifepoint.
By Friday morning, the Sheriff’s Office announced that 10 distinct felony criminal charges, totaling 20 counts, were being filed against Guzman, who was identified as a resident of Eagle Creek Mobile Home Park off U.S. Highway 301 south of Statesboro’s bypass, but whose immigration status reportedly remained to be determined.
BCSO Investigator Kodi Wallis, who is leading this investigation, and Capt. Todd Hutchens, who heads the Sheriff’s Office’s Criminal Investigations Division, then held a press conference early Friday afternoon.
Guzman is “currently in our jail, and he will be there until we have further court proceedings,” Hutchens said, noting that reporters had been given a list of the charges.
Rape, statutory rape, aggravated child molestation, aggravated sodomy and cruelty to children in the first degree topped the list. The other charges reportedly named in the warrants are first-degree home invasion, false imprisonment, burglary, two counts of aggravated assault with a knife and 10 felony counts of possession of a knife during commission of a crime (each knife charge being linked to one of the previously listed counts).
“Basically, this happened early morning hours of the 12th,” Hutchens said. “He came into this family’s home and forcibly raped this 11-year-old girl at knife-point, and so he was in possession of a knife when this happened… .
“You’ll see the list of charges includes two counts of aggravated assault,” the BCSO captain continued. “One will be on the 11-year-old victim, who is also the victim of the rape. One will be on the 11-year-old’s sister, who was 10, who was in the room, and Guzman, the arrested, also threatened the 10-year-old girl with a knife.”
In response to reporters’ questions, Hutchens stated that the 10-year-old was not sexually assaulted but that the 11-year-old was.
The arrested suspect and the victims “live in close proximity to each other, but according to the victim or the victim’s family, they do not actually know this particular person,” the captain also answered. “They had seen him in the area, but did not know him.”
One TV news reporter asked about motive. “Motive is going to be, this 26-year-old has a major problem,” Hutchens said. Investigators, he said, believe that Guzman forcibly broke into the back door of the mobile home in the middle of the night “because he had previously seen this 11-year-old girl” and “claimed he was attracted to her.” The Sheriff’s Office had found no history of previous sexual assault allegations against Guzman, but this was still under investigation.
Status unknown
So was his immigration status.
“That’s still being worked on today,” said Hutchens. “We likely won’t find out something till next week, but we will have Immigration do an intake on him and find out what his status is.”
The Statesboro Herald asked whether – considering the seriousness of the charges – Guzman would be prosecuted in Bulloch County regardless of his status and not just handed over to Immigrations and Customs Enforcement or some other agency.
“We’ve already talked to the Ogeechee Circuit District Attorney’s Office, and the prosecutor that will be handling this case, and jointly discussed this,” Hutchens said, “and he will not be deported until and after this case is disposed of.”
He noted that, if convicted, the accused could face potential prison sentences of 25 years to life on several of the alleged crimes. That is so for rape and aggravated sodomy, and potential sentences for aggravated child molestation also range up to life in prison in certain circumstances under Georgia law.
Incident to arrest
After their assailant fled from the house, the sisters, ages 11 and 10, went to the other end of the home, where the mother and stepfather were, and told them what had happened, Hutchens said. The parents then immediately called the Sheriff’s Office. This was very early Monday, not long after midnight, according to the investigators.
Working at first from who they thought he was and his first name, the investigators took a couple of days to identify Guzman as the suspect and a vehicle he was driving. This led to a traffic stop, based on his failure to appear in a previous traffic case, Hutchens said.
Bulloch County State Court records show that a bench warrant was issued for Guzman in June 2023 and a bond forfeiture ordered after he failed to appear in court on misdemeanor charges of allegedly driving an unregistered vehicle without a valid license or insurance.
Jan. 15 traffic stop
Deputies from the Sheriff’s Office Patrol Division, along with Wallis and some of the other investigators, made the arrest Thursday afternoon. They had monitored the vehicle coming back toward Statesboro from the area of Interstate 16 and made the stop on the bypass.
Guzman was arrested without further incident, and Wallis then interviewed him at the jail with assistance from a deputy who speaks fluent Spanish. Hutchens said, “He gave us a lot of information that is consistent with the application of these charges.”
Guzman was being held without bond Friday but had not yet had a hearing. A first appearance hearing would probably be held Monday, Jan. 19, according to the sheriff’s officers.
BCSO investigators were satisfied to have made a relatively quick arrest, their captain said.
“Our whole criminal investigation unit worked on this, once this came to light and we began trying to identify the suspect, and it is trying on the whole unit,” he said. “But now that we have this particular person in jail, we know that he will not be able to victimize anybody else right now, and hopefully not forever.”
If anyone has further information about this case or Guzman’s previous contacts, the sheriff’s department asks that they call Investigator Wallis at 912-764-2715