Copperas Cove man sentenced to life without parole for continuous sexual abuse of young children
By LYNETTE SOWELL
Cove Leader-Press
Francis Jarad Cola, 44, of Copperas Cove was sentenced to life in prison without parole by a Coryell County jury on Thursday evening, June 24.
Cola was convicted for continuous sexual abuse of young children after a trial which began after jury selection on Monday, June 21 in the 52nd District Court.
According to a press release from the office of Coryell County District Attorney Dusty Boyd, this was the first jury trial of 2021 and the first jury trial conducted at the county courthouse since the pandemic began in spring 2020.
The guilty verdict was given for multiple sex crimes committed against two children beginning in January 2017 and continuing through June 2019.
After an outcry of sexual abuse had been made against Cola by two children, te Texas Department of Family and Protective Services initiated a joint investigation with the Copperas Cove Police Department. The children were forensically interviewed at the Advocacy Center for Central Texas.
Cola was interviewed by Copperas Cove police, arrested in December 2019, then subsequently indicted for sexual abuse of a child continuous, victim under 14, by a Coryell County grand jury in January 2020.
Cola has been in the Coryell County jail since his arrest on $107,500 bond.