You know how sometimes you are looking for one thing and find something else instead? Well, I was checking out cnn.com to see how the "Top Kill" was working in the Deepwater Horizon incident. (If you have no idea what I am talking about, for heaven's sake turn on the TV or something because I know about this and I am practically a hermit!) Anyway, while looking around the site I noticed a story about the Atlanta Child Murders that took place 30 years ago.
I remembered those murders from when I was a child. I was about 7 or 8 when they started and I recall the news coverage. That was back in the day when there were only 3 channels on TV and we still watched the news instead of iCarly or the like. My 8 year old brain saw, maybe for the first time, that there were bad things in the world. Being the child that I was, I didn't want to think that could happen to me in my city (Atlanta was the big bad world) so I decided that it couldn't happen to me where I lived. Then came Peaches.
Peaches was the nickname of a 6 year old girl who lived in Montgomery Village...better known as "the projects" in South Knoxville. On the day after Christmas in 1980, she walked to a store near her home and disappeared. I knew the store well as it was on the way to where my aunt lived. After that fateful day, whenever we past it, my mother would point it out as the last place Peaches was seen.
I guess it is just "degrees of separation" or something that made me remember Peaches. You know, the Atlanta article on cnn.com jogged my memory. So, I did a search for Knoxville TN Peaches Murder on Google and the first return was for an article that ran just last Saturday in the Knoxville News-Sentinel on the cold case! Apparently, the police thought the prime suspect was dead but the newspaper reporter found him very much alive and living in a nursing home. As I read the article, it took me back to that horrible time when my own backyard became the bad place in the world.
The article details the events of December 26, 1980. Peaches' mother sent her to the store on Old Knoxville Highway to get her a Coke because she was thirsty. Let's just stop right there and let me set the scene. Montgomery Village was a bad place to live in 1980 (still is) and it was freezing outside. The walk to the store took about 15 minutes roundtrip...and it was in the snow. SO...this mother of three who was only 22 at the time (three kids by 22...that is some fast work) SENT her 6 year old out in the snow...in freezing temps...to buy her a Coke because she was thirsty. Just so I am clear...it was the mother who was thirsty. I am just going to make the wild leap based on the whole 22 and has 3 kids thing that she wasn't the most responsible mother in the world. As a mother, I am wondering what was up with this lady. I mean, it wasn't like the world was totally innocent in 1980. Those Atlanta Child Murders were on the news all the time from '79 to '81. Also, Montgomery Village was crime infested.
So, we have a little 6 year old walking to the store to get that all important Coke. Then she never showed back up at home. The search was on but Peaches was not found that night...or the next...or for more than a year. During the time she was missing, a relatively famous psychic in the area, Bobby Drinnon, was called in. The police were desperate and were looking for help from anywhere they could get it. Drinnon told them (based on my memory) that Peaches was dead. She would be found in a wooded area by water. In January of 1981, hunter found a skeleton in the woods near Rockford (the town I lived in). The police were called in and the remains of clothing, shoes and hair ribbons marked the end of the search for Peaches. She was found in the woods and her body was near a stream.
The story is a cautionary tale for all parents. It is a tragedy. It is also sad for a myriad of other reasons.
A suspect was almost immediately questioned just after the little 6 year old went missing. He was one of her mothers many boyfriends. In fact, the mother had a fight with this boyfriend because, according to the mother's words "he wanted her to be his old lady and she couldn't decide" just moments before Peaches was sent to the store to buy that Coke...with money the mother borrowed from that boyfriend. Oh...that same boyfriend told the mother as he was leaving that he would make her pay. Was his revenge the murder of her child? Maybe. The police could never pin the murder on him and all evidence on the body was long gone after a year in the elements. To this day, the man claims he is innocent. He is a really upstanding guy too. Only like half a dozen arrests and significant prison time on his record. But, who am I to judge...(HE DID IT PEOPLE!)
It has been 30 years and Peaches' mother still lives in Montgomery Village. I feel sorry for her loss. BUT...I wonder why a mother would send a 6 year old to the store...in the snow...with a mad boyfriend on the prowl...for a Coke. I also wonder why, after 30 LONG years, she is still living off the government in Montgomery Village. Actually, I am not really wondering about that part. I think I know.
Peaches will always remain stuck in my memory as the little girl who didn't get to grow up like I did. I always look at that store on Old Knoxville Highway and remember her. I can point to her disappearance and murder as when I figured out the world was a bad place full of people that might want to hurt others.
As a mother now myself, I can't imagine losing one of my children. I am not sure what I would do if something similar happened...such as one of them being taken by someone I knew. I do however know what my mother, their grandmother, would do. She has laid out the game plan. She would hunt the person down and use her particular set of skills to make them pay. Do I doubt her? Not one bit. She would happily sit in prison (if she were caught) because she would have gotten them in the end. Yeah...she scares me a little. What scares me a little more is the fact that I think I would help her but I would plan it out better where she might be a hothead. There is always places to bury folks in the mountains. Bleach gets rid of almost all DNA evidence and you need a rock solid alibi. Don't worry folks...I am just thinking aloud...
For all I had to say about Peaches' mother, I feel she has more than paid for her error in judgement. We all make mistakes and she paid a very high price for hers. I pray that she will one day be reunited with her daughter in that land that is fairer than day...
