The Mammoth Book of Killers at Large

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Book: Read The Mammoth Book of Killers at Large for Free Online
Authors: Nigel Cawthorne
did.”
    Catherine Leach, mother of 13-year-old victim Curtis Walker, shares Graham’s belief in Williams’ innocence but, to her, this is not about Williams.
    “I don’t know if he’s innocent or not on those other crimes,” she says. “All I want is justice for mine.”
    For her, the issue is her son, the boy who said he was going to Hollywood one day and make his momma rich. And she believes that her boy’s killer is, almost certainly, still at large along with the murderer of the other Atlanta child victims.

Atlanta’s Prostitute Killers
    In Atlanta, Georgia, more than ten African-American prostitutes have been murdered by a serial killer who likes to display their bodies in theatrical positions at the crime scene. Law enforcement personnel believe that this “lust killer” has been at large in Atlanta for the last 15 years.
    Convicted killer Jeremy Bryan Jones confessed to killing eight women in metropolitan Atlanta, including five prostitutes. He talked of picking them up on streets lined with strip joints, murdering them and dumping their bodies in wooded areas and, in one case, dropping the body off a bridge in a river. Although he passed a polygraph test, he has since retracted his confession. His court-appointed lawyer, Habib Yazdi, said that he would confess to anything if he was allowed to talk to his mother and girlfriend.
    Jones is certainly guilty of other killings. On 26 October 2005, Jones was convicted of burglary, sexual assault, rape, kidnapping and the homicide of 45-year-old Lisa Nichols. During the trial he blamed Nichols’ neighbour for her death, but he had earlier confessed to killing Lisa and burning her body while high on crystal meth.
    On 18 September 2004, Lisa Nichols, the divorced mother of two daughters from Mobile County, Alabama, had been found in her bathroom. She had been raped, shot in the head three times and her body set on fire. However, while the body and the room were scorched, the fire did not destroy the house as intended – and with it vital forensic evidence.
    Neighbours recalled seeing a vehicle parked outside Nichols’ home and one recalled part of the licence plate number. This lead to a itinerant labourer known locally as “Oklahoma”. His employer gave the police his birth date and social security number. This identified him as John Paul Chapman, an alias used by Jeremy Bryan Jones.
    Four days later, Chapman called Detective Paul Burch of the Mobile Country Police Department who was investigating the Nichols murder. The call was traced and Chapman was arrested, still on the phone, in a house not far from where Lisa Nichols lived.
    Chapman was already known to the police as a small-time drug user. However, fingerprints had failed to link him to Jeremy Bryan Jones of Miami, Oklahoma, who had been in trouble with police since, at the age of 16, he had been charged assault of a boy and his mother. He was also suspected of murdering 20-year-old Jennifer Judd, the wife of a former schoolmate and next-door neighbour Justin Judd. She had been stabbed to death in the kitchen of her own home. Her body was discovered by her husband. They had been married just ten days. Justin Judd had regularly reported Jones to the police after hearing women’s screams issuing from Jones’ house.
    Jones was charged with rape on 5 November 1995, and again on 10 January 1996. On the second occasion he was found in possession of methamphetamine – crystal meth. Out on bail the next day, he pointed a loaded gun at a woman’s vulva and threatened to pull the trigger.
    He pleaded guilty to three charges of sexual assault on 3 March 1997 and was sentenced to five years’ probation. Two rape victims were afraid to testify. He defied court orders requiring him to provide DNA samples and was kicked off his sexual-offender counselling sessions. Then on 19 October 2000 his probation was revoked and a warrant was issued for his arrest, citing probable cause. Rather than go to jail, Jones

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