in the spring of 1980, police were still reluctant to listen to camille bell. children were dying on the streets of atlanta in the daytime. among them, jefferey mathis, only 10. like yusef bell, he walked down the street on an errand to this gas station to buy cigarettes for his mother. she never saw him again. what we had here was a predator. and what he was looking for was somebody who was cut off from the herd. and if you don t realize you re in trouble until you re in trouble, then you have no way of getting out. it would be another year before jefferey mathis body was found in the woods, miles from his home. his mother would join camille bell in forming a committee to confront the city s leaders.
many of the bodies were left in the woods far from home, unlike most murder victims who are found where they fall. unsolved murders of children is very rare. if a 9-year-old got killed, it was because somebody slapped him across the room, he hit his head, and he died. police did not create a task force until a year after the first murders began. fbi profiler roy hazelwood came down to help. three detectives drove him around the city and turned into jefferey mathis neighborhood. as soon as we turned onto that street, everything stopped. there was a guy cutting the grass, he stopped. guys playing dominos on the porch stopped. i said, what s going on? i said, everything stopped. they said laughingly, that s because we have a honky in the car. john glover, who took over as fbi chief in atlanta that summer, says that s why he and
in the spring of 1980, police were still reluctant to listen to camille bell. children were dying on the streets of atlanta in the daytime. among them, jefferey mathis, only 10. like yusef bell, he walked down the street on an errand to this gas station to buy cigarettes for his mother. she never saw him again. what we had here was a predator. and what he was looking for was somebody who was cut off from the herd. and if you don t realize you re in trouble until you re in trouble, then you have no way of getting out. it would be another year before jefferey mathis body was found in the woods, miles from his home. his mother would join camille bell in forming a committee to confront the city s leaders.
these deaths were different. many of the bodies were left in the woods, far from home, unlike most murder victims who are found where they fall. unsolved murders of children is very rare. if a 9-year-old got killed, it was because somebody slapped him across the room, he hit his head and he died. police did not create a task force until a year after the first murders began. fbi profiler roy hazelwood came down to help. three detectives drove him around the city and turned into jefferey mathis neighborhood. as soon as we turned on to that street, everything stopped. a guy cutting the grass stopped. guys playing dominos on the porch stopped. i said, what s going on? everything stopped. they said, laughingly, that s because we have a honky in the car. john glover, who took over as
children were dying on the streets of atlanta in the daytime. among them, jefferey mathis, only 10. like yusef bell, he walked down the street on an errand to this gas station to buy cigarettes for his mother. she never saw him again. what we had here was a predator. and what he was looking for was somebody who was cut off from the herd. and if you don t realize you re in trouble until you re in trouble, then you have no way of getting out. it would be another year before jefferey mathis body was found in the woods, miles from his home. his mother would join camille bell in forming a committee to confront the city s leaders. the reaction of the police was that we were overreacting and that there was no serial