A Walker County man has been sentenced to life in prison after he admitted to sexually abusing three children.

The Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit (LMJC) District Attorney’s Office says an investigation began on August 4, 2024, when a family friend reported that 26-year-old Josiah Matthew Backus had confessed to sexually abusing the children.

During interviews done through the Children’s Advocacy Center, all three children disclosed the abuse, corroborating one another in describing repeated sexual assaults by Backus, according to the LMJC DA's Office.

Backus also admitted to the repeated abuse during an interview with a Walker County Sheriff’s detective.

He later pleaded guilty to multiple counts of Aggravated Child Molestation and Child Molestation.

The first 35 years of Backus’s

See Full Page