Judge weighs alleged Silver Comet Trail killer’s violent history

Laura McAlister had just put her kids to bed when she heard a strange noise.

When she walked into her kitchen, she saw a man lurking inside the back door.

“Who are you?” the terrified special ed teacher asked.

“I am me,” Michael William Ledford replied.

Ledford, reeking of alcohol, cornered McAlister and told the single mom not to scream. He said he didn’t want to have to hurt her children, she testified recently.

Four years after the incident, on July 25, 2006, authorities say Ledford killed a mother of three on the Silver Comet Trail in Paulding County. She fought back so fiercely, investigators said, his blood was found on her bicycle.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. Ledford has pleaded not guilty.

Last week, a judge considered a prosecution motion to introduce at his April 13 trial evidence of “similar” attacks committed by Ledford. The judge has yet to rule.

The pretrial testimony showed that when Ledford terrorized McAlister in her kitchen, he had more than eight years remaining on probation for a Paulding County rape conviction. If prosecutors could have revoked the balance of that time, Ledford would have still been in prison when Jennifer Ewing, 54, of Sandy Springs was sexually assaulted and killed by blunt trauma along the Silver Comet Trail.

An exception in Georgia law, however, allowed Ledford to serve only two more years. He was released in early 2004. A year later, according to testimony, he tried to attack a female cyclist on the Silver Comet Trail. A year after that, authorities say, he killed Ewing just off the trail, which runs from Smyrna to the Alabama state line.

Ledford was visiting his brother in Centerville, Tenn., when he accosted McAlister, who lived next door, in April 2002.

Even though he ordered her not to scream, she did, repeatedly, and Ledford was soon arrested.

Ledford initially was charged with aggravated kidnapping and aggravated burglary — both felonies. But he wound up pleading guilty to false imprisonment, a felony in Georgia but a misdemeanor under Tennessee law.

Ledford returned to Paulding County for a hearing on sending him back to prison. It turned out Georgia law allowed a maximum sentence of two years for someone who committed a misdemeanor while on probation.

On Oct. 15, 2002, Ledford got the two-year term, with six months’ credit for time served in a Tennessee jail.

Hickman County, Tenn., prosecutor Michael J. Fahey said Friday that Ledford was allowed to plead to the misdemeanor because he was going to serve time in Georgia for violating his probation. Fahey was unaware Ledford faced no more than two years for it. Fahey also said he had not known that Ledford is now facing capital murder charges. Paulding District Attorney Drew Lane declined to comment.

Details of Ledford’s criminal past were presented last week by prosecutors who want to show Ledford allegedly had a predilection toward sexually assaulting petite women.

Three women Ledford attacked or nearly assaulted all stood between 5-foot-3 and 5-foot-5, with statures similar to Ewing’s 5-foot-5 frame, prosecutors showed.

This included a Paulding County woman whom Ledford raped on March 30, 1991. At the time, she made a chilling prediction.

“I dread the day he gets out because I think he’ll do it again to somebody,” the woman wrote in a victim impact statement. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution does not identify sexual assault victims.

Last week, the woman testified that Ledford grabbed her around the neck and pulled her into a wooded area.

“He said he wouldn’t hurt me so long as I did what he told me to do,” she testified, her voice barely audible, tears running down her cheeks.

After raping her, Ledford told her he was sorry and let her go, she said.

She and two other women peered over the witness stand and pointed a finger at Ledford, whose jacket partially concealed a large tattoo on his neck.

Another witness testified Ledford had tried to assault her on the Silver Comet Trail a year before Ewing’s murder.

In March 2005, Virginia Bell-Pringle was alone on the trail, training for the bicycle leg of a triathalon, when a man burst out of the woods.

Bell-Pringle swerved out of the way just in time, and his grasp missed her by inches. She said she looked back and saw the man was standing in the middle of the trail, so she gave him a long look over her shoulder before cycling away.

That was why, she testified last week, she was confident that man was Ledford.

She rode on, called her husband on her cellphone and finished her ride. Bell-Pringle, a clinical psychologist, testified she decided not to call police at the time because she did not think anything could come of it.

But when she saw news reports of Ewing’s disappearance along the Silver Comet Trail, she called police to tell them what had happened to her. By the time she finished the call, she testified, Ewing’s body had been found.

TIMELINE

March 30, 1991 Michael William Ledford rapes a Paulding County woman and is sentenced to 10 years in prison to be followed by 10 years on probation.

Spring 1991 The woman Ledford raped writes in a victim impact statement, “I dread the day he gets out because I think he’ll do it again to somebody.”

April 1, 2001 Ledford is released from prison and begins his 10-year sentence on probation.

April 24, 2002 Ledford corners a woman inside her Centerville, Tenn., home, but police arrive after her screams attract 911 calls.

Fall 2002 Ledford pleads guilty to false imprisonment in Tennessee and receives probation.

Oct. 15, 2002 A Paulding County judge revokes Ledford’s probation for the 1991 rape and sentences him to two years in jail.

March 2005 Ledford allegedly tries to attack a female cyclist on the Silver Comet Trail, but she eludes him.

July 25, 2006 Ledford allegedly sexually assaults and kills Jennifer Ewing on the Silver Comet Trail.