‘I’m a strong, tough woman who can’t be hurt anymore’: Woman recounts being groomed by former music producer convicted of child sex crimes

FRANKLIN, Tenn. (WKRN) – She met him at 16.

A year later at the age of 17, she was groomed, manipulated, and turned into a victim.

“He found every weakness that I had, and exploited it.”

Today, she is 31 years old and considers herself a survivor. After testifying against 55-year-old Samuel Sylvester, Abbey George Ware shared her emotional story and the details that made her who she is today.

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“Fifteen years ago when I was 16 years old, I met Samuel Sylvester at a music performance that I did; it was a competition that I did at the Williamson County Fair,” Ware said.

Ware was in a girl’s group at the time, taking her future in the music industry seriously. Her talents took her across the states and even to London. When she met Sylvester, who was a music producer, Ware thought it was a chance to work with a professional.

“As things went on, he did a lot of grooming. That’s a buzzword these days, but that’s just what you call it, but he did a lot of grooming, and things got very confusing for me,” Ware explained.
“It just became ugly, and it got uglier and uglier as time went on, and he became very possessive and aggressive in his nature,” Ware said.

For nine months, Ware said she was groomed into thinking they had a special relationship. The two spent hours together until things changed.

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“He started to make comments like, ‘You’re going to be mine one day. You’re not going to know when and you’re not going to know how, but you will be mine one day,'” Ware remembered.

Then, their relationship hit a breaking point one night Franklin.

“There was a night that he asked me to come mix a track that we had been working on with him, and he used the hotel rooms in Franklin,” Ware said, holding back tears. “I got there and he had did something he had never done before; he took my phone and my keys and I just knew in my heart that that was it. It was just something he had never done. I saw a giant black drum bag and I just knew I was going to go in it. It sounds dramatic, but that’s what I knew in my heart that I wasn’t going to see my family anymore.”

That night, she was able to escape, and that’s where her contact with him stopped, or so she thought. For several years after that incident, Ware said Sylvester would go up to her around town. She said he followed her to Kansas where she moved temporarily. Then, after Ware moved back to Tennessee with her first child, she saw him again.

“I filed for an order of protection and I was granted that order of protection, and in the process I filed a police report,” said Ware.

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After telling her story to detectives, Ware would learn new information that would change her whole view of what happened.

“In the process of that, I learned after years of believing I was the only one that there was a 12-year-old victim that had already come out and I just couldn’t breathe,” Ware cried. “She was 12 and it disgusted me.”

When the case went to court in May, Ware then found out about a third victim.

A Williamson County jury found Sylvester guilty of seven counts of statutory rape, and two counts of sexual battery by an authority figure.

“A really big theme in my case was late to report. I heard that a lot in the closing arguments, ‘late to report…delayed report.’ I can tell you that for me it wasn’t a brave thing to walk in and say I’ve had enough, I’m doing this. For me, it was protection of myself and my child,” she said.

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Today, Ware sits in a wheelchair after complications while having her third child. Surrounded by her parents, three children and her husband, she said she’s stronger than ever with everything she has been through.

“There are women 100% that have been affected by this man. Please, please, it’s hard and it’s scary, but it’s so healing. He’s in jail; he can’t hurt you; he’s gone; he’s locked up, and we need him to stay there,” Ware said. “I’m a strong, tough woman who can’t be hurt anymore.”

Franklin police believe there may be other victims out there, and they are urging anyone with information to contact Det. Andrea Clark at (615) 550-6829, or Andrea.Clark@FranklinTn.gov.

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