The Atlanta Ripper by Jeffery Wells

Author:Jeffery Wells
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing Inc.
Published: 2011-03-14T16:00:00+00:00

THE SUMMER MOVES ON

As the summer continued to wax on, several other events unfolded. For one, the Atlanta Constitution reported on July 23 that the Fulton County police had arrested a suspect for the murder of Sophie Jackson. Prior to this report, the papers had made no mention of her murder. Apparently, Jackson was murdered on June 24. Fulton officer J.M. Carroll made the arrest, and according to the report, he had been investigating the murder and trailing the suspect, one Ed Ward, for the previous few weeks. It was also noted that Ward had several aliases, two being W. Cole and John Wesley. Carroll said that his suspicion was heightened after speaking with the deceased's father on the morning after her body was found.

Mr. Jackson reported that Ed Ward had been at the Jackson resident for several hours on the night of the murder. When he asked Ward to help him search for his daughter after she did not return home, Ward refused. Jackson mentioned in the article that Ward began to behave oddly. Jackson reported to Officer Carroll that Ward even went so far as to say that there was no use in searching for her, for he knew she was dead, and that if he helped look for the body and found it, people might begin to think that he was guilty of killing her. However, shortly afterward, witnesses reported seeing Ward go near the area where police eventually found her body. In addition, Ward began to move around a bit, eventually having his belongings sent to Madison, Georgia, under the alias W. Cole.

Carroll hopped a train for Madison, where he immediately contacted local police. Staking out the local train station, Carroll awaited the arrival of the next train from Atlanta, and as suspected, Ward was aboard the train. Carroll made the arrest at that time, and Ward made a full confession of the crime. However, shortly afterward, he changed his story and said he had not killed Sophie Jackson. The biggest question about this story is whether Ward murdered Sophie Jackson, and if not, was she part of the Ripper serial killings? If Ward was the killer, was he responsible for more of the murders? The record is not clear, and not much more is mentioned about Jackson or Ward.

As July gave way to August, Fulton County prosecutors moved forward with their cases against Henry Huff and Todd Henderson. On August 9, the Fulton County grand jury indicted Henry Huff, but it also indicted a new suspect, John Daniel. Huff would stand trial for the murder of Sadie Holley. Very little information was given about the arrest, investigation and arraignment of Daniel. However, what can be said with certainty is that he was being held and indicted for a murder that was attributed to the Ripper. As these indictments were being handed down by the grand jury, things grew eerily quiet, and the Ripper murders ceased. However, this period would prove to be the quiet before the storm, for as August closed, another young black Atlanta woman would lie dead on the streets.

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