William and Zachary Zulock | |
|---|---|
| William and Zachary Zulock's mugshots | |
| Born | |
| Occupations | Government employee (William) Bank worker (Zachary) |
| Criminal status | Incarcerated (both) |
| Conviction | Guilty on all counts (both) [a] |
| Criminal penalty | 100 years in prison plus life on probation (both) |
Date apprehended | July 2022 |
| Imprisoned at | Jimmy Autry State Prison (William) Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison (Zachary) |
William Dale Zulock and Zachary Jacoby Zulock [4] (born 1989 and 1987), respectively, are two American child rapists and sex offenders, currently serving a sentence of 100 years in prison for the repeated sexual abuse and sexual exploitation of their two adoptive sons.
A wealthy couple of gay men involved in online LGBTQ+ activism, their case garnered significant attention from right-wing media and some right-wing political commentators in the United States, as well as from President of Argentina Javier Milei, who made a mention of the case at the 2025 World Economic Forum in Davos.
William and Zachary Zulock were born in 1989 and 1987, respectively.
In 2011, Zachary was a suspect in the rape of a 14-year-old boy, whom Zachary allegedly lured into his apartment to sexually assault him. He was questioned by Walton County police, but the case did not advance, and Zachary did not face any investigation nor charge. [5] [6]
Adam Sabes of Fox News said that court records prove that the men met on Grindr, a social hookup app for gay men. [7]
The pair had been engaged for several years before marrying sometime in the mid-to-late 2010s.
After their marriage, the Zulocks became actively involved in online activism for LGBTQ+ rights, especially adoption by same-sex couples and other campaigns and initiatives like the NOH8 Campaign and others, while keeping a socially active and upper-class life. [8] [6] [9] According to The Daily Wire , a conservative news website, the Zulocks had become visible online and alleged that LGBTQ+ magazine Out had asked them for permission to publish their story. [6]
In November 2018, they were living together and enjoyed an affluent lifestyle, with William working for the government and Zachary for a bank. [6]
By November 2018, when the Zulocks applied for adoption, they had residences in Loganville, Georgia, divided between Walton and Gwinnett County, plus another property in nearby Oxford in Newton County. [10] The couple was granted the custody of two young boys boys – aged three and five – from a Christian special needs agency named All God's Children Inc., associated with the All God's Children Campaign. [7] [11] According to a website of private investigators, the adoption process was "unusually quick" for the Zulocks and it was not known whether the adoption agency had conducted background checks on both men before granting them the custody of the children. [11] The boys had been removed from their parents due to heroin addiction and were living in foster care when they were adopted by William and Zachary Zulock. [11]
In 2019, shortly after being granted full custody of the boys, the Zulocks began sexually assaulting, molesting, and raping the two children. They also engaged in the homemade production of child pornography and frequently procured the boys to at least two men in the area who would rape them and receive photos of the children being sexually abused by either William or Zachary. [12] [3]
Between 2019 and July 2022, the abuse continued and increased, with Zachary contacting other pedophiles on Snapchat, where he posted taunting and boastful comments, as well as graphic details of what he did to the boys. [7] The couple regularly abused the children, filming and photographing their actions, which they shared with other sexual predators online. [3] Two men, who were indicted along with the Zulocks, Hunter Lawless and Luis Vizcarro-Sanchez, told Walton County police and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) that the Zulocks had offered them the boys multiple times. [6]
The Zulocks also tortured the two boys, forcing them to stand in a corner for "eight hours straight" over back-to-back days, only allowing them to go to the bathroom and eat. A relative of Zachary said that on one occasion William hit the elder sibling in the face and added that "they abused (the children) in every possible way." [5]
On July 22, 2022, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children informed the GBI's crimes against children unit that they had tracked an IP address to Walton County where suspected child pornographic material had been uploaded to a Google account. Local police and the GBI conducted a search warrant on the house and arrested 27-year-old Hunter Lawless, who confessed to receiving the material from a man named Zach Zulock. Lawless also provided the GBI with chats between Zachary Zulock and him, where Zachary used to tell Lawless when he was going to rape the boys. [13]
Police quickly arrested 25-year-old Luis Vizcarro-Sanchez, who was also accused of soliciting and consuming child sexual abuse material. That same evening of July 22, 2022, the Walton County Police Department and the GBI localized the Zulocks with the help of Walton County School District, which provided information to identify the boys. [14] Law enforcement agencies conducted a search warrant on the Zulocks's residence in Oxford, Georgia, while child and family services from Walton County took the two boys into protective custody. [15]
William and Zachary Zulock confessed to sexually abusing their two sons that same night. The GBI found extensive evidence of the abuses at the Zulocks's home, including a folder on Zachary's cell phone containing footage and pictures depicting sexual acts on the boys. Among the incriminating files was a video showing the Zulocks forcing the children to perform oral sex on them. [16] Another series of images and videos included a sexual assault on the elder sibling which resulted in an injury to the boy's anus caused by a violent penetration. [16]
Law enforcement agencies and the district attorney's office gathered a total of 149 images, a text message from Lawless to the Zulocks, a letter from the social app Snapchat, and reports written by a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner who certified the abuses on the two boys. [7]
Zachary told investigators that the abuse was "routine", but said that they had distributed the recorded material "only to less than a dozen people". [17] The evidence included more than seven terabytes of photos and videos of explicit child sexual abuse in different parts of the house, [10] with the newest material recorded 14 days before the arrests. [4] [16]
Randy McGinley, the district attorney for the Alcovy Judicial District, which encompasses Walton and Newton County, charged the Zulocks with multiple crimes. [4] [10] Zachary was indicted on two counts of aggravated sodomy, three counts of aggravated child molestation, two counts of incest, two counts of sodomy, three counts of sexual exploitation of children, and two counts of pandering for a person under the age of 18, while William was charged with six counts of aggravated sodomy, three counts of aggravated child molestation, two counts of incest, and two counts of sexual exploitation of children. [4]
The DA office also filed charges against Lawless and Vizcarro-Sanchez for their involvement in the Zulocks's crimes. Lawless pled guilty to sexual exploitation of children and was sentenced to 20 years in prison, with the first 12 years to be served in prison. Vizcarro-Sanchez pled guilty to pandering for a person under the age of 18 and numerous counts of computer theft upon being discovered that he was stealing from his employer while he worked at a Kroger in Loganville. [10] He was sentenced to 60 years in prison, with the first 15 years to be served in prison and on the condition that he testify in any legal proceeding against the Zulocks. [10] [18]
William Zulock did not face a trial, instead choosing to plead guilty to all charges on August 20, 2024. Zachary pled not guilty to the two counts of incest, accepting the rest of the indictment. On October 21, after a brief bench trial, Zachary was found guilty on both counts. [3] Judge Jeffrey L. Foster set a sentencing hearing for the Zulocks for December 19, 2024. [10]
On December 19, 2024, William and Zachary Zulock were sentenced to 100 years in prison each, followed by life on probation. [4] [6] [19] District attorney McGinley said that due to the nature of their crimes, the Zulocks will spend the rest of their lives in prison, and that they will never be benefited with parole. [3]
Randy McGinley described the Zulocks's home as a "house of horrors", [3] thanking law enforcement and other officials for their work to secure the case. [3] McGinley added that officers will "never forget what they had to see and hear in this case", calling the Zulocks "selfish" individuals who "put their extremely dark desires above everything and everyone else" with a level of depravity "as deep as it gets". [3] [4] [6] In the same statement, McGinley said that the harsh punishment guarantees that the victims "will not have to worry as they grow older about their abusers being free". [10]
The case against the Zulocks prompted interest in some U.S. right-wing conservatives and abroad, such as the case of President of Argentina Javier Milei. [20] [21] In her primetime show, The Ingraham Angle , Fox News host Laura Ingraham gave explicit details about the Zulocks's crimes, whom she called "LGBTQ+ activists". [5] Matt Walsh, another right-wing political commentator said on X (formerly Twitter), that the case was "not surprising", condemning same-sex adoption and calling the Zulocks "gut-wrenchingly disgusting and evil". [22]
Internationally, President of Argentina Javier Milei mentioned the Zulocks at the 2025 World Economic Forum in Davos, implying that gay men were prone to abusing children and calling gender ideology "plain and simply" pedophilia. [23] Milei subsequently denied comparing gay men to pedophiles or linking William and Zachary Zulock to all gay men, saying that he "lamented" that "they (gay men) let themselves be used by Party of the State's scumbags who edited the video". [23] Argentine media and society reacted negatively to Milei's comments; national deputy Maximiliano Ferraro of the Civic Coalition ARI strongly condemned Milei for "using stigmatizing and abhorrent cases" to attack the LGBTQ+ community. [20] Journalist Ernesto Tenembaum, writing for Infobae , pointed out to the increasing violent rhetoric against the LGBTQ+ community by Milei and the ruling La Libertad Avanza party, calling the president's association between gay men and pedophilia "dangerous". [21]
In February 2025, Argentines marched in the first anti-fascism protest against the government of Javier Milei and his remarks in Davos. [24] [25] [26] Prominent gay Argentines, including from the fields of science, acting, entertainment, politics, and sports, condemned Milei and the usage of an isolated criminal case by gay men to openly attack gays in general. [21] The anti-fascism march took place again in February 2026, taking broader meanings to include protests against Milei's economic policies and other political slogans. [27] [28]
As of 2026, the Georgia Department of Corrections lists the Zulocks as serving a "life" sentence. William is currently incarcerated at the Jimmy Autry State Prison in Pelham, Georgia, and Zachary at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison in Butts County, Georgia. [1] [2]
Matt Gertz of Media Matters for America accused right-wing influential figures of gay bashing, asserting that these figures "continue to target same-sex couples who want to participate in traditionally conservative institutions like marriage and parenthood." [29] Gertz wrote that right-wing commentators were "cynically leveraging" their crimes to reinforce opposition to same-sex adoption. [29] He further described the Zulocks's actions as "appalling" but said that abuse by household members is "unnervingly common", especially among children who go through the foster care system. [29]
Ingraham interviewed Mia Cathell, a reporter for Townhall who wrote an extensive multipart report about the case for that right-wing website. Cathell expressed that the problem that the story show(ed) was that "a same-sex couple was able to receive services" from an adoption agency. [5]
Gertz stated finally that, while the "right's hateful anti-LGBTQ vitriol" and the "GOP 's cruel legislative efforts in response" have largely focused on drag queens and transsexuals in recent times, adding that after historic civil rights advances, some reporters suggester an increased support for gay, lesbian, and bisexual people among the right, with the focus being now put on the trans community. [29]
In Argentina, Milei's remarks at Davos drew strong criticism and anti-fascism protests. Ernesto Tenembaum wrote on Infobae that Milei and his supporters were deliberately and falsely associating gay men with pedophiles, condemning pro-Milei commentator Agustín Laje for using homophobic rhetoric to describe the 2024 Summer Olympics opening ceremony in Paris, and implying that gay men were "desperate to screw underage children." [21] Tenembaum concluded his opinion piece by asking readers what President Milei wants Argentina to become, arguing that measures against sexual minorities and women put into question the freedom rhetoric by the government and adding that the raising of some questions previously seen as "absurd" in Argentina, were "strikingly beginning to make sense." [21]