Christa Norris drove more than three hours to see the man who’s confessed to killing her best friend.
“I wanted to see how big he was, what his voice sounded like,” said Norris of Aeman Presley, who was scheduled to appear Tuesday in Fulton County Superior Court. “I wanted to personalize what she thought when she saw him.”
Norris didn’t get the chance, as Presley, who police say has confessed to killing four metro Atlantans between late September and early December, waived the preliminary hearing.
She and another friend had dinner with Presley’s fourth victim, Smyrna hairstylist Karen Pearce, on the night she died. Pearce, a slight 98 pounds, left Leon’s in Decatur first as her other friends decided to stay for a drink.
On the way to her car she met Presley, 34, who fatally shot her in a darkened parking lot.
“(Investigators) said he wanted to kill,” said Norris, of Huntsville.
The out-of-work actor was arrested less than a week later after trying to board a MARTA train without paying fare. Police say they found a match for the firearm allegedly used to kill Pearce and three homeless men.
The first murder was planned out, investigators say. Calvin Gholston, 53, was living in an alleyway near a shopping center on Memorial Drive for two months before his bullet-ridden body was found on Sept. 27, according to DeKalb County police. Presley allegedly cased the shopping center, determining when all the stores closed.
During Thanksgiving week, he’s alleged to have shot Dorian Jenkins, 42, and Tommy Mims, 68, multiple times as they slept on Atlanta’s streets, wrapped in blankets.
Detectives told Norris he showed remorse only for Pearce’s slaying.
Retired FBI criminal profiler Gregg McCrary told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution it’s possible Presley, who had become homeless himself, resented his other victims.
“The killings fuel the fantasy that at least I’m a somebody,” he said. “They’ve gone from being losers to being gods.”
The investigation into Presley continues, Atlanta Police Det. David Quinn said Tuesday. Police in Los Angeles, where he lived until May, told Quinn they have found no similar crimes that might point to Presley, being held without bond in Fulton County Jail.
A grand jury will hear the case at an unspecified future date, said Fulton County Assistant District Attorney Michael Sprinkel. Norris said she’ll attend his trial.
“I keep thinking how scared (Pearce) was,” she said.
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