Wednesday, October 29, 2003
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Wednesday, October 29, 2003 |
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Cellmate: Reed was "peaceful and quiet" By JOHN MUNFORD Timothy M. Wallace, who graduated with Reed from McIntosh High School in 1999 but only “knew of him” in school got to know him better two summers ago when they both spent some time in the Fayette County Jail. Wallace was locked up for violating probation with a failed drug test for marijuana and Reed for auto theft. Wallace said the Reed he knew at the jail was peaceful and quiet. “It wasn’t like he was truly a deviant,” Wallace said, adding that he doesn’t sympathize with Reed for attacking the clerk. Wallace also admitted that Reed had become a “career criminal” by stealing cars. Police said Reed tied the victim up, raped her and set her back afire. Reed died Friday afternoon fleeing a Coweta County Sheriff’s deputy in a car he stole from his roommate in Sharpsburg. “When I first found out about it,” Wallace said of the attack, “I thought somebody needs to rape him.” Wallace said knowing the suspect drove a fast car made him feel like he just might have known the then-unnamed suspect at one time. It wasn’t until Friday when Wallace found out Reed was accused of the crime. “It really messed me up,” Wallace said. Wallace said he and Reed got along well in jail and played board games, discussed going to bars in Atlanta and other life experiences. Reed told him he was able to steal cars partly based on his knowledge of electronics; Reed took an electronics class at McIntosh, Wallace noted. Reed never lost his cool in the jail, Wallace said. “There are some people I know who it wouldn’t be a huge shock if they did it,” Wallace said of the hotel attack. “Obviously it was very twisted but he never gave that kind of impression.” In a letter to the editor of The Citizen (see Page A4), Wallace said he spent his time in jail “thinking of straightening my life out; I suppose now that he planned to remain on his present track.” “Beau Reed, no matter who he was or who I remember him to be, became one of life’s truly evil men,” Wallace wrote. “He became a vessel of hate, spreading pain and torment in our world. He deserved far worse than death for his sins, and only God can justly punish his soul.” In the letter, Wallace wondered what sent Reed on his path to the violent attack, which left the hotel clerk with second and third degree burns and both physical and mental scars. “It is obvious Beau chose to be a criminal for a living. Maybe he became a drug addict as well,” Wallace wrote. “He spent time in state prison, so maybe something happened to him there. Of course, these speculations are simple answers to a very hard question: Why? Why would anyone torment an innocent life with such selfish acts of violence?”
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