Late Thursday night, a Clark County officer escorted Sheila Granger off to jail in handcuffs.
She's guilty of molesting two boys for a year starting in August 2007, when the boys were 12 years old.
According to her, she befriended the boys, welcomed them into her home and her family and she says she became a "mother-figure" for the boys.She hugged and kissed them on the cheek. The boys and their families trusted her.
But, the prosecution said Granger seduced both boys by showering them with gifts and attention, until she manipulated a seemingly innocent relationship into a sexual one. One victim said he fell in love with her.
Lucy Lee, the Executive Director of the Exploited Children's Help Organization, says that's a classic example of how child molesters groom their victims.
"They tend to charm their victims. They do tell them, 'I love you,' 'you're my favorite.' And children are very vulnerable," said Lucy Lee, the Executive Director of the Exploited Children's Help Organization (ECHO).
Very rarely, she says, are child molesters the "dirty old man" people think of. They're typically someone very close to the victim.
Granger and one of the victim's mothers were best friends.
"It's just almost totally abhorrent to all of us to think that a woman would molest a child. We tend to think of women as mother figures of taking care of children," said Lee.
As the victims' families left the Clark County Courthouse they celebrated her conviction.
But child psychologist Kelli Marvin says often times victims and their families have a long road ahead of them. She says, typically, depression, nxiety, withdrawal from friends or social events, aggression in boys, behavioral acting out in boys, and increasing level of oppositional or defiant behaviors and conduct disturbance can start two years after the abuse stops. And without help, research shows adulthood can be brutal.
"Adult victims of child sex abuse are at a higher risk of revictimization. They have a higher risk of being raped, a higher risk of being in relationships where domestic violence is a factor and a much higher risk of being involved in exploitative relationships," said Marvin. "If it's a family member that violates the abuse, or it's a close relationship and those trust barriers are destroyed or violated, then the abuse and the effects of the abuse can be profound."
Sheila Granger will be sentenced in December. She faces 30-60 years in prison if the felony charges run concurrently. She faces more than 200 years in jail if the charges run consecutively.
