Man Gets Life For Kidnapping, Raping Woman at Bartow Hotel

A Canton resident has been sentenced to prison after pleading guilty to kidnapping and raping a woman he previously had a relationship with.

Bartow County Superior Court Judge Suzanne H. Smith on Tuesday sentenced Chancey Earl Droney, 43, to life in prison. Droney was arrested in March 2014 by Adairsville police for the crime, which allegedly started in Cherokee County, but ended in the city limits.

At around 10:20 p.m. Sunday, March 30, 2014, the Adairsville Police Department responded to the Ramada Inn on Georgia North Circle where a woman, who appeared to be “visibly traumatized,” told officers Droney “had abducted her in Cherokee County, bound her with duct tape and transported her by vehicle” to the hotel.

The woman told authorities she had a prior relationship with Droney, and said the suspect called and asked to meet her at a restaurant in the Holly Springs area, the Cherokee Sheriff’s Office said in a news release.

“Once at the restaurant, Droney produced a knife and ordered the victim into his car,” Kimberly Grant of the Cherokee Sheriff’s Office’s Criminal Investigations Division said.

Droney then allegedly took the woman to a secluded location in Cherokee and sexually assaulted her. The suspect then took the woman to the hotel in Adairsville where the assault continued.

The woman was able to get away from Droney with the assistance from a hotel clerk, who called 911.

Droney was arrested and charged with rape, aggravated battery, aggravated sodomy, two counts of aggravated assault, aggravated sexual battery, battery, sexual battery, false imprisonment, criminal trespass, terroristic threats and acts and kidnapping with injury charges.

The agency then contacted Cherokee detectives after the woman told them she had been kidnapped from the neighboring county. Additionally, the Cherokee Sheriff’s Office has charged Droney with kidnapping, false imprisonment, aggravated assault and rape.

A Bartow County grand jury last year indicted Droney on one count each of kidnapping with bodily injury, aggravated battery, false imprisonment and criminal trespass; two counts each of aggravated sodomy, rape, aggravated assault, aggravated sexual battery and simple battery; and five counts of sexual battery.

Droney last month was indicted by a Cherokee County grand jury on one count of kidnapping, aggravated assault, rape, two counts of aggravated sexual battery, one count of aggravated sodomy and one count of sexual exploitation of children.

According to the Cherokee indictment, Droney is accused of allegedly possessing images depicting children in sexually explicit situations. He is scheduled to be arraigned at 9 a.m. March 12 in Cherokee County Superior Court, court documents show.

Photo credit: Cherokee Sheriff’s Office