Jerry Scott Heidler,horrifically abused child-victim who killed family of 4,including 2 kids,in 1997 Santa Claus,GA rampage,is found Guilty & gets legal murder sentence
Joe1orbit
Here is a slightly longer & more detailed article on 22 year old Jerry Scott
Heidler, who was convicted of slaughtering four people, a married couple and
two of their biological children, in a shooting rampage that he undertook in
the small town of Santa Claus, Georgia, a few weeks before christmas, in 1997.
He broke/snuck into the house in the middle of the night, that had Danny & Kim
Daniels and their NUMEROUS children, both biological and foster inside, and
then he OPENED FIRE upon the sleeping couple, terminating their lives at
point-blank range, and fatally shooting two of their children as well. Jerry
had a GOLDEN opportunity to kill as many as 10 or 11, because the house was
filled with OTHER children, at least 5-6 of them. But instead he only KIDNAPPED
three of them, drove a few dozen miles with them in his car, then chose to let
them go, unharmed physically. A GENEROUS man, Jerry is, to have chosen to spare
their lives, when he had no real REASON to do so.
As posted in a brief update by someone else, Jerry WAS found Guilty of all
four murder counts, a few days ago. The penalty phase of the trial begins
immediately, I'll TRY to see if a verdict was reached when I search for
updates, and OUTRAGEOUSLY, despite the fact that Jerry is a VICTIM of childhood
TORTURE and he CHOSE to SPARE the lives of NUMEROUS children that he could
EASILY have harvested, you diseased hypocrites are determined to get Jerry
legally murdered. One can only hope that the PERVERSE jury, which already
BETRAYED their society's own victim-creation by decreeing him worthy of
punitive punishment for the rest of his life, will somehow find the morality
and humanity to reject the power to MURDER Jerry, that their bloodthirsty
society has given them.
It is SO beautifully emblematic of how you diseased hypocrites think, that
OTHER victims of child abuse are CONDEMNING Jerry, because he dared to seek and
claim the vengeance he was entitled to, while they chose to reject and put
aside THEIR right to claim violent vengeance. It's like they are saying: "We
are brainwashed cowards who claim to have overcome our abusive pasts without
resorting to violence, and we BEGRUDGE Jerry his right to have chosen a path
different than our own, just because we have become addicted to the insane
notion that all victims are obligated to transcend and cut short the cycle of
brutalization that was begun against them as children." How totally RIDICULOUS
in it's hypocrisy, that type of rationale is.
JUSTICE would be, for EVERY person involved in this case, from the judge to
the prosecutor to the relatives of the victims, RECOGNIZING and accepting the
undeniable fact that Jerry is a VICTIM of society, who deserves no punitive
punishment for simply CONTINUING the cycle of violence and brutalization that
society began against him, when he was but a NEWBORN child-slave.
Yup, I just found the update, confirming, as usual, my worst suspicions about
you diseased hypocrites. The jury did indeed condemn Jerry to be MURDERED via
an electrified chair, acting as DIRECT REPRESENTATIVES of a society that CLAIMS
to be opposed to murder and says murder is a criminal/illegal act, except of
course when done to satiate the bloodlust of you hypocritical citizen-slaves.
How PERVERSE!
We learn that 22 year old victim-martyr Jerry, who had maintained a stoic
demeanor throughout the trial, broke down and cried just AFTER he was condemned
to be legally murdered. As well he SHOULD have, the ONLY life form worthy of
having Jerry shed tears, is himself. Perhaps he realized that his TRUE
POSITION, of being a TORTURE VICTIM of society, would never be acknowledged or
given to him. His tears were shed for himself, properly. He KNOWS, as do I and
all other ratiopnal thinkers, that he had an absolute RIGHT to kill those 4
people, and society has absolutely NO right to kill him. It is UNDENIABLE, the
INJUSTICE that has been and continues to be committed against Jerry. His
STANDING as a VICTIM, is rejected and renounced by you perverse hypocrites.
Instead, he is DEMONIZED, condemned to death, for the "crime" of having fallen
victim to child torture, when in fact he was a HELPLESS SLAVE and his childhood
torture was maliciously imposed upon him by your society. Amazing, how you
humans can look at yourselves in the mirror and not VOMIT over your two-faced,
mass torture-murder of created victims, policies and mindsets.
You can view a small photo of how our new victim-martyr looked in court, over
at the following URL:
http://www.savannahmorningnews.com/smn/stories/090499/LOCheidler.shtml
Stay Strong, Jerry.
Take care, JOE
The following appears courtesy of the 9/3/99 online edition of The Savannah
Morning News newspaper:
Friday, September 3, 1999
GUILTY: Jury must now decide whether Santa Claus killer lives or dies
By Leonora LaPeter
Savannah Morning News
MONROE -- Danny Daniels believed in the death penalty.
He would want his killer, Jerry Scott Heidler, to be put to death, relatives
said.
A Walton County jury took the first step in that direction Thursday, finding
Heidler guilty of shooting Daniels, his wife, Kim, and their two children,
Jessica and Bryant, as they slept on the night of Dec. 4, 1997. Heidler was
also found guilty of kidnapping the Daniels' three girls and sodomizing one of
them.
The jury declined to find Heidler guilty but mentally ill, as defense lawyers
had sought.
The death penalty immediately became an issue as the trial moved to the penalty
phase. The jury has the option of sentencing Heidler to life in prison, life in
prison without parole or death by electrocution, a decision that will probably
be made today.
"This man killed four people, he's escaped from a high-tech jail facility, and
he's already said that killing gave him a rush," said Louie Johnson, Danny
Daniels' brother-in-law. "He probably is mentally ill, but he's not insane and
everybody says he knows right from wrong. I don't think that should preclude
him from getting the death penalty."
The jury spent just a half hour deliberating the 11-count indictment, breaking
for about an hour to listen to the court tape of an Augusta psychiatrist who
testified on Wednesday. As the verdict was read, relatives and friends of the
Daniels family cried quietly and then more openly after the jury was led away
during a break. Heidler kept his head down, maintaining his vigil by staring at
the carpet in front of him.
Mary Moseley, Heidler's mother, declined to say anything after the verdict
except that her son is innocent.
Moseley's brother, standing next to her after Thursday's verdict, knows better.
Unlike his sister, he sat through four days of testimony and listened to the
verdict.
"I feel sorry for the Daniels family," said Heidler's uncle, who declined to
give his name. "He done it, agreed, but he's my nephew, and he needs help. We
all can see that. He needs help."
Friends and relatives of the Danielses had little sympathy.
Connie Smith, Kim Daniels' sister, and others said they think if anyone
deserves the death penalty, Heidler does. Kim, 33, had been in dozens of foster
homes since she was 5, including 17 in one year alone. Smith said she was in 52
foster homes during her childhood.
"We lost our mother when we were little, but that didn't cause us to go out and
murder someone," Smith said.
It has been a trial that exposed the good and bad of foster care in Georgia,
because just about everyone connected to the case has had some involvement in
it.
All four of Kim Daniels' biological children had been placed in foster care for
brief periods. Kim, who had bouts with alcoholism, had reclaimed her life,
married Danny and turned her own home into a nurturing foster home for
neglected children, social workers said.
Heidler, meanwhile, was "shoveled through foster homes" as a child. His younger
sister, Jo Anna, had been placed in the home of Kim and Danny Daniels for six
weeks in 1995 because of trouble in the Heidler home. That's how Heidler met
the family.
Defense lawyers hope to capitalize on Heidler's troubled childhood as evidence
that he should get mental help rather than the electric chair.
"This is not some master criminal trying to dream up a defense," said Michael
Garrett, one of Heidler's defense lawyers, during his closing argument
Thursday. "This is a very sick young man."
District Attorney Richard Malone, however, said the defense was blowing smoke.
"This man responsible for all this pain, all this devastation, all this
destruction is not someone in Jerry Heidler's past," Malone said. "He's seated
at the end of that table. He won't look you in the eye, but he's seated at the
end of that table."
Malone pointed out that Heidler destroyed a nine-member family and also left
behind another victim, the town of Santa Claus, which once celebrated heartily
around Christmastime because of its distinctive name.
"For eleven months of the year, it's just like every other town, but for one
month it was special," Malone said. "The tenth victim is Santa Claus, because
now when December rolls around, people think of the murders that happened in
Santa Claus. Why? Mr. Heidler is the only one who can answer that."
Malone called five witnesses, most of them jail officials involved in Heidler's
incarceration in Toombs County, as the penalty portion of the trial got under
way Thursday.
Jailers told of Heidler possessing weapons, removing brass locks and smoke
detectors, threatening other inmates and jail officials and escaping the jail
by sawing through the bars and security screens on July 6.
Bruce LeBlanc, booking officer at the Toombs County Detention Center, said
Heidler didn't sleep much and they often had conversations. One night, Heidler
told him he was once a churchgoing man, but he didn't worry about souls
anymore.
"He said he was a collector of souls and he wasn't through collecting souls,"
LeBlanc said.
Dean McManus, an agent with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, said Heidler
once called him from jail and said he had a score to settle with him. To
identify himself, Heidler said: "Nine little piggies. Four dead."
Malone told the jury there are a number of aggravating reasons why Heidler
should get the death penalty, but his actions in jail show he poses a threat to
others in jail and people outside the jail who must worry about him escaping.
"Jerry Heidler will escape because he's done it already," Malone said. "This
man is looking for a way to get out of incarceration, and he remains the same
horrible killer he was on Dec. 4, 1997. And not only can he escape, he will."
Defense lawyers began late Thursday painting a picture of chaos in the Heidler
home. All of Heidler's siblings are now incarcerated but his sister, Lisa.
Heidler also has a brother, Steve -- in prison for theft -- and a younger
sister, Jo Anna, a juvenile.
William H. Johnston, a juvenile program manager with the Department of Juvenile
Justice, testified that "the family may be involved, for no better word, in
devil worship."
More testimony is expected today about Heidler's childhood, as lawyers seek to
get him imprisoned for life rather than sentenced to death. Garrett has
defended about 17 men facing the death penalty and just one of them now sits on
death row. He worries he's about to get his second.
Family members just want to see the week end.
"I just want justice to be served," said Brandy Claxton, Kim Daniels'
17-year-old daughter. "In a way, I just want this to be over with so my mama
and Danny and Jessica and Bryant can rest in peace."
Legal affairs reporter Leonora LaPeter can be reached at 652-0311.
--------------------------------------------------------
The following appears courtesy of the 9/4/99 online edition of The Savannah
Morning News newspaper:
Jury sends killer of Santa Claus family to electric chair
Sentence provokes emotion for the first time from Jerry Scott Heidler.
By Leonora LaPeter
Savannah Morning News
MONROE -- The jury had left.
The sentence had been read.
Jerry Scott Heidler's face was still as stone.
Only when Superior Court Judge Walter C. McMillan Jr. actually sentenced
Heidler to death for the murder of the Daniels family did Heidler break down
for the first time and cry.
Sitting at the defense table surrounded by six guards, his hands and legs
shackled, Heidler shook with the force of his tears. He didn't say anything but
wiped his nose on his blue and green polo shirt and folded his hands on his
lap.
Four death sentences, one each for Danny, 47, Kim 33, Jessica, 16, and Bryant,
8, who Heidler shot dead in their beds in Santa Claus on Dec. 4, 1997. Two
additional life sentences for kidnapping one of the Daniels' daughters and
sodomizing her in a van by the Altamaha River. Another 110 years for kidnapping
two other Daniels' daughters and subjecting one of them to witness the
molestation of her sister.
McMillan gave Heidler the maximum sentence on all charges, saying the
22-year-old Alma man did not deserve mercy when he showed no mercy on the
Daniels family. He set Heidler's execution date for between Oct. 1 and Oct. 8,
although the sentence will be automatically appealed to the Supreme Court of
Georgia within 30 days.
And McMillan expressed sorrow for the tiny town of Santa Claus, which must
celebrate Christmas and remember Heidler in the same month for years to come.
Jurors seemed to take Friday's decision much harder than the guilty verdict
they rendered on Thursday. They sent a note to the judge about an hour into
their deliberations, saying they had prayed for everyone and wanted to read a
statement when they gave their verdict.
About 45 minutes later, they emerged from the jury room, many of them
overwrought with tears as jury foreman James Burrows read the death sentence.
"We have shared in this with you and, like you, it has changed our lives
forever," Burrows read from a sheet of paper. "Yesterday and today, we held
hands and prayed for courage and guidance to do the right thing."
Asked after the trial about his decision, Burrows said he just couldn't talk
about it.
"It's too soon," he said. "I'm just not ready. I don't even want to talk to my
wife about it. It was very hard."
Friends and family of the Daniels said Friday's verdict finally gives them the
closure they need, although they felt sorry for Heidler's family.
"It was the right thing, but I do feel sorry for his sister, because she's
going through the same thing we are," said Connie Smith, Kim Daniels' sister.
"It's hard to lose someone. But he did what he did for no reason, and I feel he
needs to pay for it."
Brandy Claxton, Kim Daniels' 17-year-old daughter, worries about her sisters
and brothers. Corey and one of the girls are with Kim Daniels' former foster
parents. Two other girls are with Danny Daniels' sister. Gabriel, who was 10
months old when the Daniels were killed, has been adopted out of state.
"The only thing that keeps me sane is that the day before (she was murdered) I
saw her and said, 'I love you,' " Claxton said. "That's what keeps me sane."
Defense lawyers had tried all morning to raise sympathy and compassion for
Heidler, who they characterized as a mentally ill man with a troubled childhood
who needed help rather than a death sentence.
But the testimony of Heidler's mother, sister, junior high school teacher,
foster mother, a psychologist and several social workers did not overcome the
gruesome crime.
Heidler's sister, Lisa Heidler Aguilar, was the last witness to testify for the
jury.
"I don't want them to kill my brother," said the 24-year-old mother of three,
breaking into tears on the stand.
Aguilar, who works with her husband as a migrant worker, testified that both
her father and her stepfather had been alcoholics over the years, but neither
had ever abused Heidler. She denied that black magic or voodoo had ever been
practiced in her mother's household, as other witnesses have testified.
A worker from the Department of Family and Children Services testified that
Heidler's mother, Mary Moseley, had threatened to cast spells on the child
protective services workers who visited her home and checked up on her
children. One spoke of Moseley leaving a voodoo doll with a pin in it in her
office a decade ago.
Heidler, who had open-heart surgery when he was 4 years old, was placed in two
foster homes because of poor supervision by his mother, the DFACS workers said.
He had imaginary friends, a mouse that he carried around in his hand, said
Sylvia Boatright, Heidler's foster mother when he was 11. He called Boatright
Grandma. She learned to love him, she said.
"All he'd ever say is 'come on lil' mouse, come on lil' mouse,' " said
Boatright, who lives in Alma. "Scotty was also afraid of the dark. He was
afraid a knife would come through the ceiling and cut him."
Later, when he returned to his mother, he attended a school in Baxley for
children with learning disabilities. He mutilated himself by picking at his
skin until he bled, testified Marilyn Dryden, his teacher at the time.
One time, Heidler didn't come to school.
"So I rode over with my supervisor and we stood outside his door and sang, 'You
are my sunshine,' and that got him up and he came out," Dryden said. "He came
to school. He had a big smile on his face."
DFACS workers said by this time Heidler was a troubled young man in need of
some help. He tried to commit suicide a number of times, mutilated himself and
landed at Georgia Regional Hospital twice for mental problems -- once when he
was 11 and another time when he was 13.
James Maish, a forensic psychologist from Augusta, testified Friday that
Heidler suffered from a severe case of borderline personality disorder. He said
Heidler had eight of the nine symptoms, including suicide attempts, outbursts
of uncontrolled anger and "frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined
abandonment."
About 2 percent of the population suffers from the disorder, and 10 percent
kill themselves.
His diagnosis was not different from the other three court-appointed mental
health experts who examined Heidler. But he took it a step further, saying
Heidler had no control over his actions because of his genetic disposition.
"Originally, we thought that every personality disorder was from a bad
environment growing up," Maish said. "In other words, whatever was going to
happen, you'd lose the battle by age 6."
"In either case, nurture or nature, did Scotty Heidler have any control over
this?" asked defense lawyer Michael Garrett.
"No, he can't control that," Maish said. "It's something you're born with."
Moseley, Heidler's mother, acknowledged her son was troubled. But she continued
to pledge his innocence on the stand Friday.
"I raised Scotty," she said. "Scotty did not do that murder."
"Even though a jury found him guilty of it?" asked District Attorney Richard
Malone.
Moseley shook her head.
"He loved that family. He cared for that family. My family cared for that
family," she said. "He's not that kind of person. You've got to know him to
know if he's capable of that."
The evidence against Heidler -- a confession, fingerprints at the scene, DNA
evidence and witnesses -- was so strong that defense lawyers Michael Garrett
and Kathy Palmer did not try to put up a defense.
They did try to save his life, though.
"About 350 years ago, our ancestors would know what to do about Scotty Heidler,
they'd say 'He's possessed by the devil, let's burn him,' " Garrett said. "It's
the supreme irony that here we are in 1999 at the end of the third millennium,
and we have the same mentally ill person and you are asking to burn him,
literally. Have we not progressed as a civilization any farther than that?"
Malone, however, pointed out that Heidler knew right from wrong and was
responsible for his own actions.
"What happened in that house is consummate evil," Malone said. "Jerry Scott
Heidler had a terrible childhood, yes, but when are we going to expect him to
take responsibility for his actions?"
Legal affairs reporter Leonora LaPeter can be reached at 652-0311.
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I hope that Jerry gets to experience the "love" of the largest & most violent prison inmates.
hmse...@gmail.com
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ravenso...@gmail.com
.....satellite TV? HELL NO....you get a newspaper....And when you're done reading it....use it to wipe.
Weight benches....gyms....fuck no....
Chain gang digging ditches and repairing highways 8 hours a day like hard working folks.
I'm not saying be outwardly cruel....we're not them.
But punishment should not have comforts. And if your crime warrants death....then so be it.
Blaming it on a rough childhood is a copout and it's bullshit
