MEDIA
RELEASES
|
|
|---|
Reward
Offered in East Point Killing
Monday, January 28, 2002
DNA database links suspect to slaying, rapes
Wednesday, January 30, 2002
DNA matching helped indict a man in the murder of a pregnant woman and another rape in his apartment complex, Fulton County authorities say.
Tommy C. Wright, 23, of East Point was indicted Tuesday on charges of murder, rape and aggravated assault in the October slaying of Erica Thompson, 27. His DNA matched bodily fluids found at the scene, said authorities.
In addition, Wright was charged in the 1999 rape of another woman also living in the Club Candlewood apartments in East Point. The connection was made when Wright's DNA, taken under a court order when he was arrested for murder, was entered into the state DNA database. There, it was compared to the DNA found at unsolved crime scenes.
"He was not even considered a suspect in the 1999 incident," said Fulton District Attorney Paul Howard. "The case had gone cold."
The announcement marked the second time in two weeks that authorities credited the state DNA database with solving a crime. Last week, DNA from a cigarette butt helped tie three men to the Coweta County murders of a dairy farmer and his son 12 years ago.
The state database contains DNA collected at the scenes of unsolved crimes and samples from felons entering the state prison system.
In the Fulton cases, authorities fixed on Wright after they discovered he was using the murdered woman's credit cards. He lived only a few doors from Thompson, a single mother who was eight months pregnant and raising a 4-year-old daughter.
Wright also was charged with the murder of Thompson's unborn child and the beating of her daughter. The girl was beaten and bound with duct tape, and Howard said she saw Wright beat and rape her mother, drown her in the bathtub and stab her 10 times.
The other rape victim, a 20-year-old woman, was attacked and beaten as she slept. She could not identify her assailant, said Howard. Police had focused on another suspect until the DNA targeted Wright.
Ted Staples,
who manages the state DNA database, said that in the past year, 79 felons
have been linked to unsolved crimes. Eight links were made this month.
Click on the picture for the full size view.
Dog's
Ears Cropped Without Anesthesia
A pet owner is behind bars in East Point, Ga., after her dog's ears were
damaged in an attempt to have them cropped, without anesthesia.
Police charged Dorothy Williams with animal cruelty after they say she
allowed a stranger to perform a procedure called cropping. It is usually
done in a veterinarian's office with anesthesia. In this case, it was done
by a stranger without medicine.
"It appears the dog's ears had been cut with a pair of scissors or a
razor," said Det. Eric T. Deem with the East Point Police Department.
Police found out about the "surgery" from neighbors who heard
6-month-old Jada crying.
At first, Williams denied she was the dog's owner, but then she changed her
story, according to police.
"She said she authorized an unknown Black man, who said, quote, 'He was
licensed to perform this procedure,' to crop the dog's ears," Det. Deem
said. "When Miss Williams stated she had authorized this procedure to
be performed, without anesthesia, to the dog, I advised her she was under
arrest for animal cruelty."
The pit bull was brought to veterinarian Dr. Charles Durland.
"[Jada was] covered with dried blood from his head to his back and
neck," Dr. Durland told 11Alive Reporter Jaye Watson.
Durland did what he could to repair the damage.
East Point police were still looking Thursday night for the man who cropped
Jada's ears. They planned to arrest him.
Williams was expected to be arraigned on Saturday. She was being held on
$5,000 bail.
Jada was living at the Fulton County Humane Society on Thursday night. Jada
was not up for adoption. Her case was ongoing.
East Point man in dog abuse case heads to court
February 25,
2002 -- A man accused of abusing a pitt bull will be arraigned in East
Point Municipal Court today.
Johnny Dawson, 43, was arrested Saturday for allegedly cutting the dog's
ears with a scissors or a razor on Wednesday.
A woman where the dog lived was charged in the case last week.
Police say they are now looking into the possibility that Dawson has been
doing this to other animals.
A woman tried to rob members of an East Point congregation before an early morning church service Sunday, police said. East Point police Lt. Russell Popham said Michelle Lawrence, 43, of northwest Atlanta unsuccessfully tried to snatch a woman's pocketbook at the St. Stephen Missionary Baptist Church around 7:45 a.m. Lawrence bit several churchgoers who came to the woman's aid and she tried to steal a car in the church parking lot before she was subdued by church members and arrested.
Police blamed a feud between two men, not road rage, on a vehicular battle that ended in an East Point parking lot where one driver allegedly beat the other to death with a baseball bat.
Police Capt. Bob Mathews said detectives obtained a murder warrant and were looking for Timothy Hill, 24, of Diana Drive S.W. He is accused of killing Benjamin Alford, 35, Friday evening.
The two were acquainted and had a "continuing dispute," Mathews said. "We don't know what they were mad about."
Mathews said witnesses reported seeing Hill, at the wheel of a Chevrolet Suburban truck, following Alford's '88 Oldsmobile Cutlass along Stanton Street, "ramming into the rear and side of the car."
The drivers wound up in the parking lot of a former brake repair shop on Woodberry Avenue, Mathews said, where Alford allegedly took a baseball bat from his trunk and "busted out the windows on Mr. Hill's truck."
Mathews said Hill got out, took the bat from Alford and allegedly struck Alford "several times about the head, hard enough to kill him. He was dead when we got there."
Officers, responding to a 911 call from a witness, found both vehicles and the baseball bat still in the parking lot.
Thursday, June 20, 2002
An Atlanta man sought by East Point police in the fatal beating of Benjamin Alford with a baseball bat Friday surrendered Tuesday night, police said. Capt. Patricia Boyce said Timothy Hill, 24, of Diana Drive S.W., Atlanta, turned himself in at East Point police headquarters at 5:15 p.m. Tuesday. He was accompanied by an attorney. Hill was charged with murder and armed robbery. Witnesses reported seeing Hill strike Alford several times in the head with a baseball bat.
Firefighter
Arrested for Pandering
An Atlanta
firefighter is out on bond Friday after allegedly trying to solicit sex
from underage girls at an East Point apartment complex, East Point police
said.
Officers had arrested Moses King Thursday afternoon after finding him in
uniform at the Mira Head Terrace Apartments, located in the 3000 block of
John Freeman Way. They charged him with three counts of pandering and one
count of criminal trespass.
Police began looking for King after learning that he had allegedly been
trying to solicit sexual favors from two or more girls -- all 17 year old
or younger -- at an East Point apartment complex.
One of the teen-agers' grandmother allegedly reported the incident to
police, according to East Point police Lt. P. A. Boyce. The grandmother
claimed that King had been at the same complex about a week ago attempting
to solicit sex from young girls.
Convicted
wife-beater gets 40-year sentence
Thursday, June
27, 2002
You don't have to kill somebody to get decades in prison. Fulton County prosecutor Sharla Jackson won a conviction against an East Point man for beating his wife. Reuben Walls, 37, got 40 years.
"The East Point police said it was the worst non-homicide crime scene they had ever seen," said Erik Friedly, spokesman for the Fulton County district attorney's office.
Walls brutally beat his wife with a weight-lifting bar while in a jealous rage, District Attorney Paul Howard said.
Walls attacked Kimberly Lewis, 33, in their East Point home on West Woodberry Avenue on Jan. 27, 2001.
He beat her all over her body, and, as she attempted to escape out a window, he hit her in the back of the head, Howard said. She grabbed a knife in an attempt to defend herself, but Walls was able to wrestle it away and began stabbing her, the district attorney said.
He fled, and his wife lost consciousness. Walls was arrested the following day after he returned to the house and phoned police --- posing as a cousin --- to inquire whether a warrant had been issued for his arrest, Howard said.
Walls was found guilty of aggravated assault and aggravated battery.
Superior Court
Judge John Goger sentenced him immediately after the four-day jury trial.
Police
kill car chase suspect
Wednesday, July 3,
2002
A man was killed Tuesday in East Point when police shot him after a car chase that ended with his crashing and then trying to run over an officer, authorities said.
After the crash, two Atlanta police officers were walking toward the wrecked sport-utility vehicle when it backed toward one of the officers, said Capt. Pat Boyce of the East Point Police Department.
"The police sensed the physical threat. A car is a big weapon," she said.
If autopsy results, which are expected to be released today, confirm that gunshots killed the man, it would be the tenth fatal shooting by police in metro Atlanta this year, three more than this time last year. Police are withholding the victim's name pending notification of the family.
Boyce said the 10:45 a.m. incident at the eastbound Virginia Avenue on-ramp to I-85 South remains under investigation. Police did not say whether they found a weapon in the man's Lincoln Navigator.
A few witnesses questioned whether police had to shoot.
"The cops could have just let him go and then pursued him. They would have caught him," said Tyrone Jacobs, 27, manager of a nearby Texaco gas station. "There was a 90-year-old lady at the gas pumps. She was a nervous wreck."
The two Atlanta officers are Officer Charles Frye and Senior Officer Marilyn Stone, both of whom have been on the police force since 1973. Both have been placed on administrative assignment, as is routine following a police shooting. Atlanta police spokesman Sgt. John Quigley said both officers fired shots during the incident.
"He just sped past the police officers and ran a red light," said Quigley. "When he crashed, they pulled up. And when they walked over, he slammed it into reverse. Obviously they were frightened."
The car chase began when the Atlanta police officers spotted the gray SUV driving erratically on Virginia Avenue near the East Point border, police said. The pursuit ended a few blocks away when the vehicle, careening onto the I-85 South ramp, crashed into the guardrail, police said.
"The cop car stopped behind it," said Michael Wilgues, 26, of Santa Cruz, Calif., who was at a gas station. "They told the guy to get out and he wouldn't. Then he hit reverse and barreled off. And they started firing after him." Wilgues said the SUV reversed with enough force to drive the police car back 5 feet.
After the shooting, the SUV continued to travel across the Virginia Avenue overpass before crashing again on the other side.
|
Wednesday, July 17,2002 The new
state laws enacted by the General Assembly this year regarding
teenage driving have been well received by public safety officials
throughout the state. However,
many south Fulton public safety officials say these laws, by
themselves, are not enough and believe more teen driver education
and other programs relating to teen motorists are needed to curtail
the alarming increase in traffic fatalities involving teens. In what
it hopes will be the first of many such teen driver education and
responsibility programs, the South Fulton Regional Library at 4055
Flat Shoals Road in Union City will host a Driver’s Safety for
Teens program July 17 beginning at 6:30 p.m. The
program, conducted by the Georgia Department of Motor Vehicles and
the Georgia Insurance Information Service, will involve discussions
on numerous topics regarding teen drivers, such as the new graduated
driver’s license, teen drivers and car insurance, driving safety
for teens and the potential financial exposure of a teen’s family
if that teen is involved in a serious traffic accident. David
Coleman of the Georgia Insurance Information Services, said the
program will convey valuable information to teenage drivers and
their families. Union
City Police Chief Mike Isome said he sees the new state laws on teen
driving as encouraging but he does not believe they are going to
make an immediate impact on traffic accidents involving teens. These
laws need time to have the effect state lawmakers envisioned, he
said. South
Fulton police officers also believe teenagers face as many
potentially dangerous traffic hazards at intersections as they do on
the open highway. Sgt.
Nate Jackson of the East Point Police traffic division, said drivers
have a tendency, when approaching an intersection, to rush the
traffic light and try to cross on yellow. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
