
By Patti Weaver
(Stillwater, Okla.) — A former Stillwater daycare facility employee has been given an 18-year prison term for possessing and distributing child pornography in September of 2020.
Savannah Noel Hawthorne, 23, who has been jailed since her arrest last June in Enid where she was then living, pleaded guilty to both charges without an agreement with the prosecution regarding her sentence.
Following an April 5 hearing that included emotional testimony, Payne County Associate District Judge Michael Kulling took the case under advisement until April 10.
“This is not a victimless crime — these are real children being sexually assaulted,” prosecutor Erica Garuccio had told the judge in urging that Hawthorne be given a 20-year prison term followed by five years of probation, along with sex offender registration.
In announcing the 18-year prison sentence followed by seven years of probation, the judge noted, “the defendant possessed thousands of files,” depicting child sexual abuse including torture.
Stillwater Police Detective Stephanie Wheeler conducted an extensive investigation to identify the suspect after receiving a cyber tip on Nov. 2, 2021, from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that indicated Twitter identified apparent child pornography on their network, a news release said.
At the sentencing hearing, the detective testified, “This case had the most child sex abuse material I’ve seen, 2900 files. In my experience, distribution is a lot of trading. Savannah was selling the content. Some of the distribution did occur while she was at the daycare;” however, no children from the daycare were identified in pornography.
“The content ranged from infants to age 16. This case had some content very difficult to watch,” the detective testified.
On cross-examination from defense attorney Jodie Gage, the detective said, “I’m not sure how many times she received money.” She said the defendant was cooperative and remorseful.
The defendant’s grandfather, Larry Hawthorne of Woodward, who with his wife adopted Savannah Hawthorne as a one-year-old, said that her birth mother was addicted to methamphetamine. Savannah Hawthorne left their home in Woodward at 19 to live in Stillwater with her biological mother, who “is still doing drugs,” he testified.
Asked how she got child pornography, the defendant testified, “Someone had it on a social media account and presented it as a way to make money. I was living in Stillwater with my biological mother and her husband. I was being verbally abused by both of them. They were both on drugs.”
The defendant said that she used drugs, “marijuana mostly provided by my biological mother,” whom she said she left to live with her boyfriend in Enid.
Since she has been in the Payne County Jail, the defendant told the judge, “I’m a very different person now. I was living a life of sin and depression. I attend weekly church services. I have prayed to God to forgive me. I am very scared. I am eager to show you how much I’ve changed.”
When she was ordered to prison, her grandmother sobbed in the courtroom. As the defendant was being led away by a jailer, she looked at her family and said, “I’m sorry.”