To our readers: Some of the material below is deeply disturbing. It is essentially a reconstruction of the killings of two teenagers, and some readers will be upset by the details.
When students are hungry after class, it’s a short walk or drive across the street from Roswell High School to the King Plaza shopping center. There’s a Publix store, the perfect stop for a fast snack.
Or, when teenagers need a spot to hang out, there’s a Steak n’ Shake just beyond the Publix. They can cut through King Plaza, slipping behind the Publix, and avoid the long traffic lights at the nearby intersection.
In the depths of a hot summer night, toward 3 a.m., that lonely space behind the store was the spot where two teenagers decided to meet. Natalie Henderson and Carter Davis had wanted privacy, so the two sneaked out of their houses for a rite of passage known as parking.
But the 17-year-olds were not alone. They were being watched, and in minutes they would both be shot and killed. Police say the man charged in the shootings gave them a detailed confession, but there's one thing he didn't — or couldn't — give them: a reason.
‘You mean like Spider-Man?’ Yes, he said
Jeffrey Hazelwood didn’t have a specific reason to be at the Publix between 2 and 3 a.m. But this was Aug. 1, the deadline his grandparents had given him to be out of their house for good. No one would be expecting him anywhere. He left the shopping center for a while and then went back, according to police. He parked his car in the front of the store and walked around back, where he saw Natalie’s and Carter’s cars.
“He admitted that when he originally observed the vehicles, he was curious why they were there,” Roswell police Det. Jennifer Bennett testified Friday.
From the witness stand, Bennett spoke for an hour at the preliminary hearing for Hazelwood and pieced together what investigators believe happened around 3 a.m. On that Monday morning, the 20-year-old allegedly became a cold-blooded killer.
Eager to find a vantage point from which he could secretly watch the teens, he said he climbed an electrical box and then scaled the wall of the Publix, pulling himself onto the roof. Bennett said she asked Hazelwood: “You mean like Spider-Man?” Yes, he said, like Spider-Man.
For the next 20 minutes, from his perch atop the store, Hazelwood said he watched Carter and Natalie in the back of her SUV. Carter’s car was parked two spaces away with no one inside.
It is unclear whether his plan developed during those 20 minutes or whether this had been his plan all along. He climbed down to the ground.
Hazelwood was holding a gun when he opened the back door of the SUV and demanded both Carter and Natalie get out, Bennett said. Carter, a high school athlete who might have made quick work of the rail-thin Hazelwood, came out of the car ready to fight. Hazelwood told police that scared him, so he struck Carter with his gun.
“As he hit Carter with the firearm, it went off,” Bennett said.
That first bullet hit the ground, Bennett said. But Hazelwood fired again, this time a deadly shot through the teenager's head, according to the Fulton County Medical Examiner's autopsy report, which was released Thursday. The shot was not fired point blank, the report concluded, but at "medium range."
With Carter on the ground, Hazelwood said he told Natalie to take off her clothes, and she did. As she stood outside her SUV, naked with her bare feet on the pavement, Hazelwood sexually assaulted her with his hand, he told police. Next, he told Natalie to put her hands on the hood of her car and he spanked her, Hazelwood told police.
“At this point, he said he shot her and she fell,” Bennett said.
After she was killed, Natalie’s body was posed in a sexually suggestive position, and Carter’s was found with his arms stretched out on each side, according to their autopsy reports.
Pumping gas, wearing a mask
Hazelwood told investigators he took Natalie’s bank card from a pocket inside her purse. But Natalie’s wallet was also missing and hasn’t been found, according to police.
From the Publix, Hazelwood drove about seven miles along Ga. 92 to a gas station in Woodstock, where he filled up the tank in his grandfather’s Honda Passport, along with an extra gas can. He used Natalie’s card to pay, he told police.
“He said his car was almost out of gas,” Bennett said.
Surveillance footage showed Hazelwood at the Flash Foods gas station wearing the same clothes as the long-haired suspect seen in surveillance video from the Publix shopping center, Bennett said. At the gas station, Hazelwood was wearing a Guy Fawkes-style mask of the sort made popular in the movie “V for Vendetta.”
Hazelwood was still wearing the mask, held in place by a piece of elastic around his head, when he went back to the Publix — his third trip to the shopping center in less than two hours.
When he returned to the rear of the shopping center, Hazelwood went this time to Carter’s black Toyota Camry, where he helped himself to jumper cables, according to police. He took them, he said, in case his car broke down.
‘All I do is hurt everybody’
Shortly after 6 a.m., a delivery driver came upon the bodies of Natalie and Carter, lying on their backs on the pavement, and called 911. Officers arrived within minutes, and the investigation into the double homicide began. By daylight, worried family members arrived at the scene, where they were told it was too early to know who had been killed.
But Carter never made it to the first day of his senior year at River Ridge High School. And Natalie, who was to start 12th grade at Roswell High a week later, was also missing. By that afternoon, police confirmed the teens had been killed, and within hours, detectives identified Hazelwood as their suspect, tracking cell phone records and surveillance images.
Hazelwood's grandparents, who raised him, had kicked him out of their home and told police they were scared of him. He had a history of mental illness and obedience issues, and among the personal items police found were dark writings, including one in which Hazelwood wrote of wanting to be an assassin, Bennett said.
None of those writings has been released, but Hazelwood also had put some disturbing messages on his Instagram account.
One, a copy of a poster, said, “Eventually, the most kind hearted person will grow cold. That’s when you know they’ve been pushed too far.”
In one anguished post he wrote, “Why the (expletive) should i live? Cant do (expletive) right. All i do is hurt everybody even the one i love more than my own life and i swore to never hurt. Im beyond (expletive). Theres no one left.”
Police find a weapon and a mask
Investigators found the SUV Hazelwood allegedly drove the night of the killings parked outside his girlfriend’s house early Aug. 3. When Hazelwood left in the SUV around 5 a.m., officers followed him to a gas station off Mabry Road.
Hazelwood’s behavior outside the gas station was odd: He walked around the outside of the store and took off his shirt before he was confronted by officers and taken into custody, Bennett said.
Inside his Honda, officers found a Sig Sauer 9mm pistol believed to have been stolen from his grandfather’s truck and used in the killings, Bennett testified. They also recovered a Guy Fawkes mask and Carter’s jumper cables.
At Roswell police headquarters, Hazelwood gave differing accounts of what had happened behind the Publix.
Initially, he claimed he had picked up a friend who told him to drive to the grocery store and kill Natalie and Carter, Bennett said. Then, Hazelwood’s story changed, and he admitted he’d acted alone. Hazelwood spoke with investigators for hours, saying he didn’t want an attorney, Roswell police said.
“He was upset,” Bennett said. “He talked about a lot of family problems.”
A court hearing and a football game
To answer certain questions, Hazelwood spoke in a whiny British accent, Bennett said. Later that day, Hazelwood told officers he’d changed his mind and did want an attorney.
Two days later, at his first court appearance, Hazelwood appeared dazed and shook uncontrollably in a jail suit and handcuffs. The behavior, his attorney Lawrence Zimmerman, arose from Hazelwood's nervousness.
At Friday’s hearing, he was much calmer, rocking occasionally in his chair. Another defense attorney told the court Hazelwood had previously been diagnosed with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and Asperger Syndrome.
Hazelwood was quiet and still as Judge Karen Woodson ruled there was cause to keep him in jail until his case is presented to the grand jury on Sept. 9. He stood and was led out of the courtroom quickly.
Later Friday night, Roswell High School’s football team took the field in a game in Cobb County. As a member of the Color Guard, Natalie should have been there, and her classmates did their best to ensure that she was. Band members and cheerleaders wore ribbons of purple, her favorite color. The initials “NH” were on all of the Roswell team’s helmets.
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