The Hood family home sits alone on Ranick Road in a quiet area of Winterville, just east of Athens.
The white house is dwarfed by a large yard where sports cars, trucks, a shed and children’s toys also have made their home.
This is where Jamie Hood, now in jail on charges of killing an Athens-Clarke County police officer, and his six brothers and one sister, grew up. Jamie's alleged crime may make him the most infamous, but his six brothers all have lengthy criminal records.
A glance around the property does not show the chaos that has made up the family's adult life. A shiny red SUV is in the driveway. A tiny tricycle is parked by the porch. A large, bright green plastic alligator is hanging out by some bushes. The lawn is kept.
Two neatly dressed toddlers -- a boy and a girl -- stepped out onto the porch and into the warm sunshine early Wednesday afternoon just as a reporter was walking up the wooden steps. The boy peered up at the stranger on the porch and then opened the front door as their grandmother, a woman named Azalee Hood, appeared.
She was talking on her cell phone to her lawyer.
In the brief conversation, Azalee Hood’s attorney advised the family’s matriarch not to talk to the media. She listened, nodded, reluctantly agreed and then forcefully said she’d have to call the person back.
She hung up the phone and smiled as her demeanor softened.
“I can’t talk to you right now; my lawyer says ‘don’t talk,’” the small-framed woman said while standing in the cluttered living room where laundry sat on the sofa, waiting to be folded.
“But I have a lot to say.”
The family moved into the house 20 years ago.
“They were out there in the country. They had their own little place with land,” said John Osborne, who coached three of the boys – Robert Jr., Jamie and Tim – in football at Cedar Shoals High School.
“The parents seemed to be good folks. They weren’t absentee parents by any stretch, but you never know which way a kid is going to turn,” said Osborne, now principal of White County High School.
Osborne said he would sometimes drop the boys off at home. He never got a lot of information out of Azalee and Robert Sr. but could tell the family was tight.
Their connection is by blood and by run ins with the law.
Azalee Hood told the media 10 years ago that she didn’t like guns and doesn’t allow them in the house. She was speaking to the press after her son, Tim, had been shot and killed by a police officer.
Another son, Jamie, was serving time in jail for armed robbery. Released from jail a few years ago, he now is a suspect in a December murder and accused of killing an Athens-Clarke County police officer in a four-day crime spree that included a carjacking and holding nine people hostage.
His brother, Matthew, was arrested in connection with that same incident.
Steven, the youngest child, was arrested weeks later on charges that he beat up his girlfriend. His arrest meant three of the Hood sons were in jail at the same time.
The other sons also have served time for cocaine possession, aggravated assault and other charges.
“I feel for the mom,” said an employee of a Waffle House in east Athens whose son shared a cell with Jamie Hood. “She’s got to go through all that … the trial, visitation.” The woman did not want her named to be used.
Researchers have given a lot of attention to so-called "criminogenic" families -- ones with members who commit crimes -- said Doug Jenks, a criminology professor at the University of West Georgia. It has been difficult, though, to distinguish genetic and biological factors from environmental ones.
The Hood children now range in age from 36 to 22: Jacob, Robert Jr., Jamie, Tim, Sterling, Matthew, Jennifer and Steven.
Tim Hood had been in and out of jail for selling cocaine, breaking into a car and other felony charges before he was shot by a cop at age 22. At the time of his death, Azalee Hood told the Athens Banner-Herald she believes he was unfairly targeted by police.
“I know in Clarke County, the majority of the police didn’t like Tim,” she told the newspaper. “He was the type who would speak his mind, and they didn’t like what he said.”
Three years later an ongoing feud with another family escalated to the point Robert Hood Sr. was severely beaten. Robert Hood. Jr. was arrested for firing shots to avenge his father’s injuries and Jacob Hood was shot in the leg after a retaliatory drive-by.
It's Jamie Hood's alleged killing of Senior Officer Elmer "Buddy" Christian and the wounding of Senior Police Officer Tony H. Howard on March 22 that made national news, however. The series of events started when he and Matthew Hood allegedly kidnapped a man who owed them money. The incident led to two police officers being shot – one of them fatally – and Jamie going on the run for four days before taking hostages and holing himself up in an east Athens home, using cocaine, for most of a Friday afternoon.
He surrendered to officers on live TV.
Jennifer Hood, the lone daughter in the family, posted two comments about her brother on her Facebook page the day after the shooting:
-- “I hate what happened and I am sorry about what happened. I am praying for both of the families and I will be praying for them and my brother. I say to every one we all need to pray for one another and may god bless.”
-- “I wish people stop all of the lying because we were not there. So if you were not their keep your mouth closed because that how lies get put out. This is a wake up call to every one from god telling us we need to get it right before it is too late. The only thing is to do now is put it in the hands of god and keep praying for one another. God bless.”
Osborne, the former football coach, said Robert played varsity football for Cedar Shoals High School.
Tim and Jamie played on the same team – one made up of 8th- and 9th-graders.
The boys were respectful, saying “yes sir, no sir” Osborne said. They weren’t belligerent or challenging to authority figures. Both were good football players, he said.
In his experience as a principal, Osborne said 9th grade is a pivotal year. “If we get a kid through the 9th grade headed in the right direction, usually they stay in the right direction,” he said.
Osborne left Cedar Shoals after that year. Tim kept playing football but Jamie did not, Osborne said.
“Jamie was one of those kids you worried about. You loved him and loved on him and held him accountable … but he was one of those kids you knew was going to have trouble,” Osborne said.
Tim was more laid back than Jamie, Osborne said. “Tim was a neat kid. I never dreamed of him getting into trouble,” Osborne said.
“When Tim had his run-in with the law, I was kind of shocked because Tim was a very respectful young man,” he said. “Jamie was more high strung. His motor was running fast.”
Jamie had a clean record until he was arrested in 1997 for robbing a pizza deliveryman. Committing an armed robbery with a firearm meant he was going to prison without parole for at least 10 years. He served 12.
Jamie often talked about his brothers while in prison, the Waffle House employee said. According to her son, “there wasn’t nothing he wouldn’t do for you.”
The employee’s son, also arrested for armed robbery, remains in prison until 2016. The two cellmates stayed in contact after Jamie got out of prison, but the employee said they hadn’t talked in a while.
Jamie Hood’s Facebook page doesn’t talk about being in jail. It shows another side: going to school at Macon Technical Institute and starting Hood Automotive Services. His listed activities and interests are “helping other people and enjoying life.”
His posts enthusiastically talk about Classic City Chiefs, a youth football league that he briefly helped coach.
“Ladies and gentlemen, leeeeeeeets get ready 2 ruuuuuumble...........It's time 2 c who is the best 9 and 10 year old football team in athens,ga,” one Facebook post said.
And, he boasts about himself: "Everything that shine ain't a diamond. But damn I'm Close!"
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