A Towns County jury found Ethan Kuykendall guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of four counts of child molestation, OCGA § 16-6-4 a, and one count of statutory rape, OCGA § 16-6-3 a. He appeals from the denial of his motion for new trial, contending that the trial court erred in admitting into evidence a bed sheet over his chain-of-custody objection. For the following reasons, we affirm. Viewed in favor of the jury’s verdict,1 the evidence showed that, between February 1 and March 15 of 2007, Kuykendall, who was 23 years old, repeatedly had sexual intercourse with the 14-year-old victim. According to the victim, each time, Kuykendall would come to her home in the afternoon while her parents were at work and would take her into the guest bedroom in her family’s basement. The victim testified that, the first time this happened, Kuykendall threatened her and forced her into the bedroom, locked the door, shoved her onto the bed, pulled down her pants, had sex with her without using a condom, and ejaculated on the bed’s sheet. After that episode, Kuykendall wore a condom when he had sex with her. A friend of the victim also testified that she was in the victim’s basement after school on several occasions when Kuykendall came over and took the victim into the guest bedroom. Kuykendall threatened the girls and told them not to tell anyone about what had happened. In addition to this evidence, the State showed that Kuykendall had repeatedly called the victim’s cellphone, and accepted her calls, during the period of time at issue. The victim’s cellphone records showed that, on some days, there were 14 phone calls between Kuykendall and the victim.
The victim’s friend eventually told a relative who worked for the sheriff’s department about what was occurring between Kuykendall and the victim. After speaking with the victim and her friend, and after observing a forensic interview of the victim, an investigator went to the victim’s home and took the sheet, which was beige or tan-colored with a peach floral pattern, off of the guest room bed. The investigator kept the sheet locked away and secure in her custody until she and another investigator attempted to use an alternative light source ALS to see if there were any stains on the sheet.2 They saw fluorescing areas that they believed to be bleach spots, but did not see anything that they believed to be evidence in this case. Therefore, the investigator locked up the sheet again and called the victim’s mother, who picked up the sheet and took it home in a paper bag.
