Wednesday, April 2, 2003
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Wednesday, April 2, 2003 |
Serial murderer who dumped bodies in Flint admits to fifth killing in Henry Co.; now faces new murder chargeBy JOHN
MUNFORD
Forget four. Make it five. Carl Millard Patton Jr., who has already pled guilty to four murders including one tied to Fayette County has been indicted for a 30-year-old Henry County murder case. In the latest case lodged against him, Patton is accused of murdering Richard Russell Jackson in 1973 in exchange for $2,500 cash. Lt. Col. Bruce Jordan of the Fayette County Sheriff's Department said Patton has admitted to killing Jackson for the money. Patton has told police that he hasn't been involved with any other murders, but Jordan didn't sound so sure about that claim. "You'd have to believe that he killed for about a four-year period and stopped for the rest of his life," Jordan said. "I couldn't say for any certainty" whether Patton will ever be linked to any other killings, the chief detective said. In February, Patton pled guilty to the murder of Liddie Matthews Evans, a Jonesboro woman whose body was found just on the Fayette side of the Flint River. He also pled guilty to murdering Cleveland, who was Evans' boyfriend, and two other people whom Cleveland helped Patton kill. The case was adjudicated in DeKalb County because that's where the killings actually occurred at the Patton's residence. The cases are the oldest in Georgia to use DNA analysis evidence seized at the original scene of the crime to convict the killer, Jordan said. Patton's wife, Norma, testified in court that she saw her husband shoot Evans and Cleveland at their DeKalb County home. She said he killed the couple because he was afraid Cleveland had told Evans about several of the other murders Cleveland had assisted her husband with. Patton also claims that he is not tied to the Dixie Mafia, Jordan said. Instead, he ties that link to a "story" cooked up by a drug dealer who he used to collect money for; the story reportedly made Patton appear more intimidating, particularly since he wore a handgun in a holster at his side at all times, according to witnesses. "It was, 'You better pay up or Hotshot's gonna get you,'" Jordan said. Patton told Jordan that he had set up an attack on Jackson by arranging to meet him in 1973 under the pretext of showing him a gun that Patton wanted to sell. As Jackson was drove along, Patton said he thought they were being followed, and he asked Jackson to pull over, Jordan said. That's when Patton shot at Jackson and missed, Jordan said. But an accomplice, Joe Cleveland whom Patton shot and killed several years later shot and hit Jackson as he tried to flee, killing him, Jordan said. Patton and Cleveland didn't know Jackson had died until the next day when Jackson's wife, Marie Jackson Wyatt, was notified that police found her husband's body. Marie Jackson Wyatt, who is now deceased, would have likely been considered a murder suspect herself were she alive, Jordan has said. She died in 1988 but the cause of her death is not suspicious in nature, Jordan added.
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