A Cherokee County jury has found Chloe Driver, 24, guilty but mentally ill in the stabbing death of her 13-month-old daughter, Hannah Nicole Driver, who died in December 2020. The verdict came on Nov. 20, 2024, after jurors deliberated for less than three hours.
Driver was convicted on all counts: malice murder, felony murder based on aggravated assault, felony murder based on first-degree cruelty to children, aggravated assault, and first-degree cruelty to children.
A guilty but mentally ill verdict means jurors turned down the insanity defense and concluded that Driver is criminally responsible for what she did. She is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 12. Until then, the Georgia Department of Corrections is responsible for addressing her mental health needs.
Canton police were called on Dec. 8, 2020, to a home in the Mountain View neighborhood. Driver had stopped there with a group of two men, three women and a baby. Officials said the group was believed to be part of a cult and was traveling from North Carolina to Florida.
Officials said that shortly after arriving, Driver took a knife from the kitchen, locked herself in a bedroom with her daughter and stabbed the child before stabbing herself. The baby's father allegedly tried lifesaving measures until first responders arrived. Driver survived, but Hannah was pronounced dead at the scene.
According to the autopsy, the child had been stabbed four times, with wounds to her right carotid artery, proximal esophagus, fourth cervical vertebra and right upper back.
The trial lasted six days. Twenty-one witnesses testified, 15 of them called by the State, and jurors were shown 135 pieces of evidence, including 911 calls, crime scene photos and the murder weapon. Driver pleaded insanity, but prosecutors argued she did not meet the criteria set out in Georgia law.
District Attorney Susan K. Treadaway said jurors watched bodycam footage of first responders trying to save the girl. "The facts of this case are deeply disturbing," she said, calling Hannah "an innocent little girl who was stabbed to death by her own mother." She praised Canton police officers, Cherokee County firefighters and Northside Cherokee Hospital staff for their "incredible dedication and compassion," noting that many were exposed to trauma that "haunts them to this day."
In her closing argument, Chief Assistant District Attorney Katie Gropper told jurors that no level of hopelessness, desperation, anger or frustration excuses murder. "She chose that life. Hannah did not. Hold her responsible," Gropper said.
