UPDATED: Decatur Police Issue Warrant in Karen Pearce Murder Case
Decatur Metro | December 12, 2014 | 4:25 pmUPDATE VI: The AJC’s latest story confirms that Presley at one time was an aspiring actor and was convicted of terroristic threats in Rockdale County, while 11Alive reports that Presley was a recognizable face to some of Atlanta’s homeless community.
UPDATE V: Investigators tell WSB that the suspect is also a suspect in a fourth killing “and there could be more.”
UPDATE IV: Creative Loafing reports that Presley was brought into custody by MARTA Police. Here’s how he was arrested according to the MARTA Police Report…
On December 11, 2014 at about 11:45 a.m., MARTA plainclothes officers observed a male unlawfully entering the fare gates at the Georgia State rail station by following behind a patron without paying the required fare. The male resisted arrest and was placed on the ground for safety and was also put in handcuffs. The officers escorted the male suspect to the Five Points station for further investigation. During the course of the investigation, the suspect was found to have a loaded revolver and a box of ammunition on his person. The suspect was charged with Fare Evasion 16-12-120.1(4), Obstruction 16-10-24 and Possession of a Firearm by a Convicted Felon 16-11-131. He was subsequently transported to the Fulton County Jail for further processing. In the spirit of cooperation with the Atlanta Police Department, which is conducting an ongoing investigation, MARTA will not release any further details about this incident at this time.
UPDATE III: Atlanta jail record includes this MARTA-related offense among two charges of murder. h/t: ThomasWheatley
“UNLAWFUL TO ALTER/SELL/EXCHANGE TOKENS, TRANSFERS, TRANSACTION CARDS”
UPDATE II: Here’s a WSB summary.
UPDATE: Fox5 reports its the same man arrested in conjunction to the recent homeless murders in Atlanta.
This just in from the Decatur Police…
On Friday, December 12, 2014, Investigators with the Decatur Police Department obtained arrest warrants for a suspect in the Karen Pearce case. An arrest warrant for murder was issued for 34-year-old Aeman Presley of Atlanta, who is currently in custody in Fulton County on additional charges. We are actively working with multiple agencies at this time and cannot provide any further information that may jeopardize ongoing investigations. We anticipate that additional information will be available early next week.
I’m glad they have a suspect. Terrifying that it is potentially a serial killer.
well, if that doesn’t give you the willies, i don’t know what would. holy smoke.
Call me a conspiracist, but that seems …odd.
This guy kills two homeless black men and then a random white woman? That doesn’t quite sit right somehow.
Reports say a very distinctive gun was used in the homeless murders. Gotta assume ballistics played a big role.
Exactly my thought.
+another 1
According to WSBtv.com
“Detective David Quinn told Young they found Presley carrying a box of ammunition.
“This particular .45 Colt200-grain bullet has not been manufactured since 2010,” Quinn said.
The bullet has an elongated shape and is often called a “cowboy bullet,” and it was used each time, detectives told Channel 2.”
+1
“Armchair blogger refutes APD evidence. Story at 11:00.”
Because we all know APD has never played sloppy, fast & loose with evidence, don’t we? (See, e.g., Kathryn Johnston, age 89, gunned down in a raid on her home for drugs that were never there.)
I can see why WSN thought the pattern a bit odd–I did, too, but am waiting for all the evidence to be in before I either breathe a sigh of relief or get indignant that someone dares have the temerity to express doubts about an arrest.
Pretty much. When the evidence is made available, I’ll reconsider.
Then again, I don’t think Wayne Williams killed all of those kids, so maybe I am just a kook. (Some, but not all.)
Fair enough. The possible/likely connection between the murders is interesting. I just don’t see a reason at this early stage, with the evidence presented in the news, to assume this is some sort of shoddy police work. As tight-lipped as the PD has been to this point, they are bold to link the murders. I’m assuming the “cowboy bullet” is the key.
I hope they’re right. I really do.
But I can also see where a department might want to close a high profile (international coverage!) investigation that, as of yesterday, had very few leads by tying it to a big arrest of a Very Bad Man.
I haven’t seen the evidence tying him to the decatur murder. Have you? I’ll buy the homeless men, but until someone goes on the record that the same gun/bullets were used here…
This was brianc’s pure speculation…before the first thread was closed.
Yeah, sort of spooky.
Multiple new updates above. Suspect was brought into custody by MARTA Police for fare evasion yesterday morning. MARTA’s arrest report in the post above.
WSB TV just reported that at least one other murder, identity withheld at this time, might also be connected.
Well done APD, DPD and especially MARTA police! A serial killer is off the streets tonight. Unbelievable stuff.
+1
To think how easily he could have slipped away and killed another person if MARTA police hadn’t caught him for fare jumping.
Seriously. Big up to the Marta police if this is indeed the perpetrator. They probably never get enough credit for anything.
Exactly my thinking! What an awesome moment for a Marta cop.
It chills me to the bone that there is a distinct possibility that right after this man shot and killed an innocent woman, he walked right across the square and onto a Marta train.
CKDexter – How do you know that he didn’t take a taxi after he committed his evil crime?
C’mon. He was getting on MARTA. And I don’t think Dexter’s post was a knock on MARTA.
If the crimes are related this throws a wrench into CitLab’s assertion in DM’s news wrap. Talk about irony.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/anecdata
Anecdata. Nice. Going to use that.
Also, if the crimes turn out truly to be be related, it says not a thing about the validity of the assertion you refer to. A spree or serial killing is so far outside the realm of normal probability that it’s a total outlier. The only person who could possibly consider this ironic is Alanis Morissette.
“…CitLab’s assertion in DM’s news wrap”
I missed that assertion, please explain. Thanks.
In the DM post immediately before this post, there is a link to an article asserting that mass transit does not bring crime to an area. (“The Myth That Mass Transit Attracts Crime Is Alive in Atlanta – Fears that new buses and trains will bring “unsavory people” persist, despite evidence to the contrary.”)
Both Alanis Morisrtte and I think it is a little ironic that the very next post is about an accused seriel killer who likely took mass transit to get to our city and allegedly murder someone.
If you dig into the article it says, “A 2003 study, conducted by Keith Ihlanfeldt, looked at crime in Fulton and DeKalb counties, home to 31 MARTA stations in the early 1990s. Ihlanfeldt did find some connection between transit access and increased crime in central-city—and, in particular, poor central-city—neighborhoods.” (It is in suburbia where crime does not increase with transit access as indicated in the headline.)
Of course some criminals use MARTA to get to/from Decatur. (I recall some cell phone snatchers were caught attempting to use MARTA as a get-away car last year.) But I do not know whether the stats indicate that having an increased DPD presence around the MARTA station (versus other patrols) would be useful.
DPD does maintain a presence at the MARTA station as part of the regular patrols on the Square. MARTA police are also seen regularly there as well.
In other news, public roads also are suspected in exporting crime from one location to another. Experts claim that criminals are sometimes known to not stand still all day.
Remember the armed robberies of pedestrians on College and Howard last summer? Those bad guys had CARS. I don’t know about you, but I found those crimes to be pretty darn disconserting as well. Blaming mass transit for this tragedy is among the stupidist things I have ever seen on this blog.
They probably took mass transit to steal the cars to rob the victims.
I don’t know why, she swallowed the fly.
The most notorious killer in Atlanta history, Wayne Williams, stalked his victims using a car.
I bet the Atlanta Ripper used the streetcar, too!
(mostly because nobody much had cars in 1911.)
No one is blaming mass transit for this horrible incident. Criminals get to crime scenes a number of ways – by foot, by car, by MARTA, by bike — I am sure DPD has stats/research that indicate where police presence is most important to deter crime. I don’t know what those stats indicate, but it is interesting that the part of the article about cities like Decatur was not consistent with the headline – that is all I was highlighting.
As I said, clearly *some* criminals get to Decatur by MARTA. The irony that was referred to was just that immediately following a news article about how the crime rate is not increased by access to mass transit appeared a post about how a suspected seriel killer was caught by MARTA police.
I think the only debate is about whether the juxtaposition of these two articles was ironic.
I give a lot of credit to the MARTA policeman here. Awesome that he went into this much danger to get somebody skating on a $3 fare. Probably will end up saving lives.
Proves once again the basic stupidity of criminals. How many minor offenses lead to bigger things? That’s why minor traffic stops can be important.
I am no criminologist, but the broken window theory seems to really work…
“I am no criminologist, but the broken window theory seems to really work…”
Although arresting people for fare evasion is a classic example of broken window theory in practice, the point of it is to discourage more serious crime like drug dealing. Catching a possible serial killer was just a huge lucky break, as far as we know.
If I remember correctly, the “broken window” theory also posited that when fare beaters, graffiti vandals, and public urinators were arrested they were often found to have outstanding warrants.
Yes, that would be an additional benefit, but the police could check for warrants without actually arresting someone for a minor crime. From what I remember reading, the point was that the arrests-and their public nature–would make an area feel less safe for criminals. For example, when police in NYC began cracking down on fare evaders, they would line up the handcuffed perps near the station entrances until transport arrived, so that others would see that arrests were being made. MARTA, alas, probably lacks the resources to carry out enforcement in a similar manner.
I’m astounded MARTA actually caught someone for fare evasion. I see it with regularity. Sometimes within sight of MARTA officers.
MARTA police frequently arrest people for fare evasion. It’s probably not readily apparent because they usually hustle the perps quickly out of sight so the undercover officers aren’t too exposed.
I never thought about that (undercover).
A few years ago when I used Indian Creek daily, fare jumping there was something I saw with regularity (and there is a MARTA police station there!). But I have noticed more of a police presence in the last year.
On a positive note, last week I was on a bus and the bus driver singled out two passengers and told them to rescan their cards or get off the bus. Some people try to get away with the “quick tap” that doesn’t trigger a beep (fare). I have never seen a bus driver do that before.
They’ve also stopped leaving the bus doors open at stations when the driver isn’t present.
I live in Karen’s hometown in NC. I babysat Karen as a child and our families are very close. I am so grateful to all the law enforcement that have found her killer! Her mother said to me just yesterday, ‘she would never, ever give up looking for who murdered her daughter and left her in the street like a piece of trash’. Although an arrest will not bring back our sweet Karen, hopefully it will help with her loved ones healing.
i am truly sorry for your loss, melissa
Kudo’s to all the different police departments! Glad he is in custody.
The only better headline will be when they announce he will fry. I don’t want hear any BS about mentally ill, killing people while they are sleeping is just straight up evil as hell.
Yeah, because two wrongs make a right.
Keep him locked away for the rest of his life. It’s cheaper than execution and it’s real punishment.
How many innocent people does this guy need to kill before you decide that jailing this type of individual isn’t really appropriate? I will give you the fact that these 3 lives don’t equal Auschwitz style executions, but taking 3 lives is more than just a wrong worthy of a timeout, in my opinion anyhow. Once the justice system runs it’s course I won’t shed tear for this garbage. And if you are going to go to any rallies to save this jerk, please bother to at least bother to learn the names of his victims as well, and not just the ones who eat dinner near where you live. That’s something most people standing out there at those types of events, can’t be bothered to do.
Whoa. It’s like you looked right into my soul, the way you can see what I feel and what I can and can’t be bothered to do. Spooky.
While I sympathize with a lot of what you say, in the end, I just don’t trust the government enough to believe it won’t execute innocent people.
This is how I feel. Only not in an anti-government way but just recognizing that prosecutors, judges, and juries are human and make mistakes. Even in a perfect, equitable system, with no biases, mistakes will be made and the innocent will be executed. Not to mention the whole “two wrongs don’t make a right” thing. And the costs of death row are exorbitant. So we just need to find a way to make life sentences permanent, humane enough to respect our own humanity, but absolute and isolated enough to make victims’ families feel justice is served.
If I’m reading google searches correctly, it seems that the suspect was in California as an actor for a while. I wonder if he’ll be linked to any murders or assaults out there.
Wonder if they will tie him to the murder of a homeless woman on Nov 14 in a parking garage near Ga State. She was found beaten to death in her sleeping bag. Sounds like he’s been lurking in the area for a while.
The hardened cynic in me says they’re gonna “tie” this guy to every single unsolved killing of a homeless person on the books.
With a child down at GSU, we’ve been aware of the homeless murders from the beginning, and it was easy to imagine a serial killer was involved from the outset, since they appeared senseless. They were disconcerting. The death of Karen was also disconcerting. That those murders might be related to the senseless tragedy in Decatur is, frankly, even more disconcerting. I hope they are able to tie the whole lot and more to this creep.
Question I have is, do PD know immediately it’s the same guy based on evidence on scene, and that’s why the keep it quiet? Also, did MARTA or APD have eyes on this guy already or was it truly just a lucky break for fare jumping? Either way I am relieved he’s caught and hope we have the chance to try this piece of garbage in Dekalb courthouse.
I think they know it is him based upon the unique rare gun that was used. I think it is a lucky break that they got him fare jumping but based upon the location of the crimes, I am sure the MARTA police were told to be on heightened alert.
Ballistics evidence is a longstanding, generally reliable, evidentiary technique. Since they have the gun that was found on him and the bullets that killed the victims, they could establish strong circumstantial evidence that he was involved.
The apprehension is probably almost pure dumb luck, but police will tell you that is what solving a crime sometimes takes. As I said earlier in this conversation, oftentimes minor offenses lead to bigger things, but criminals, thankfully, don’t usually think that way. How often are drug runners caught, for instance, because of a burned out headlight, or even worse, plain old speeding?
As for where he’ll be tried first, a lot would depend on what jurisdiction would seem to have the strongest case. The other(s) would get in line behind.
A parking ticket led NYPD to Son of Sam, so, you know, dumb luck works.
Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh is another example. He was pulled over by a trooper for not having a license plate, which led to his arrest for the bombing. Also, more recently, the guy in South Georgia who faked his death to avoid prosecution for stealing from the bank he worked for. He was pulled over for having tinted windows. My point is that many criminals are caught while police are doing routine police work, not while actually in the act of their heinous crimes. So while we say, “I wish they would go after real criminals instead of trying to catch innocent people (like me) running stop signs,” the truth is that is exactly how they catch many real criminals.
Just a point of clarity. The gun is neither unique nor rare. The ammunition he was using just happens to be a round that hasn’t been sold in the last four years. The gun itself has been a very popular gun as it fires both a regular bullet or it can be loaded with a shell the fires shot…like a shotgun.
Yeah, but each gun leaves a unique “fingerprint” on the bullet that it fires, so what is found at the scene can be matched up to the gun that fired it.
There was an increased law enforcement presence at Five Points all week, including MARTA, APD, Ga State, and Capitol police, and Ga State patrol. Thursday the area was crawling with them. Motorcycle cops were pulling over cars left and right, and this was apparently after the arrest. It was obvious something was up.
FYI: I’ve added another update to the post above that includes a couple of links to new articles today that provide a bit more information about the suspect and the case.
Ok, brick up the Marta entrance downtown (I am being sarcastic – very sorry to have to clarify).
Has no one seen Season 5 of the Wire? It’s clearly related.