Three weeks after turning 20, Jeffrey Andrew Hazelwood allegedly turned into a cold-blooded killer.
Police have offered no public explanation for why they believe Hazelwood shot and killed two 17-year-olds behind a Roswell grocery store, then stole a bank card and jumper cables. It’s also not known whether Hazelwood knew the victims, Natalie Henderson and Carter Davis, before shooting them each once in the head.
Public records do not reflect that Hazelwood had ever been accused of a violent act before this summer. But court documents and years-old Roswell police reports suggest that Hazelwood’s childhood was marked by behavior problems, disobedience and disputes between his mother and the grandparents who raised him.
When he was born on July 10, 1996, Jeffrey Andrew Hazelwood’s mother was 19. The baby went to live with his maternal grandparents, Walter and Marsha Hazelwood, in their ranch home in Roswell. The Hazelwoods, according to Jeffrey’s attorney, were heartbroken to learn their grandson is a suspected killer.
“My client’s family is devastated by the tragic loss of two young people and that their grandson stands accused,” Attorney Lawrence Zimmerman said Thursday. “They are very religious and prayerful family. They can’t believe this has been brought to their doorstep.”
His grandparents had custody of young Jeff, but Hazelwood’s mother, the former Sherri Hazelwood and later Sherri Hicks, was ordered to pay $40 a week in child support, according to documents filed in Fulton County Superior Court. In 2005, her parents took her to court, claiming she was more than $12,000 behind in payments.
Ten days after Jeffrey’s 9th birthday, his mother was ordered to attend counseling with him twice a month and by herself once a month, court documents show. Sherri Hicks was also ordered to stick to a visitation schedule with her son.
“It is the hope of the parties that by doing the things set out herein, Ms. Hicks will learn how to parent a child with severe behavior issues so that one day they can be reunited in the same household,” a document dated July 20, 2005, states.
Hicks could not be reached for comment.
Though a teenaged Jeffrey Hazelwood was never charged criminally, Roswell police were called to his grandparents’ home several times, incident reports show.
After seeing a boy waving a gun in the front yard of a home, a woman called police on Feb. 18, 2010. When his grandmother called him from his room, 13-year-old Jeffrey showed her and the officer a toy gun, a police report states. The officer left after warning the boy of the dangers of carrying a toy weapon.
On March 11, 2011, Hazelwood’s grandfather reported him missing.
“The juvenile did leave a note stating that he was going to see if he could survive for a couple days in the woods,” the police report states. The 14-year-old did not take his backpack or camping gear. He did, however, take his grandfather’s 9 mm handgun, according to police.
Later that night, Jeffrey Hazelwood called his grandfather and said he was with his mother at her Woodstock home. His mother took the teenager back to his grandparents’ home the same night.
Six months later, in September 2011, Roswell police were again called to the Hazelwoods’ home, where the teenager and his grandfather were arguing, an incident report states. Jeffrey had run away days before, his grandfather said, and was not following his grandparents’ rules. The responding officer told Jeffrey that a city ordinance prevented him from being out alone at night, and the teenager said he would try to get along better with his grandfather.
On Dec. 4, 2011, it was a neighbor's report that sent police to the home. Jeffrey, 15, was swinging a sword in the front yard and throwing knives at trees, the neighbor reported. He said the behavior made his family uncomfortable. The same neighbor said he’d had several incidents with Hazelwood, according to the report. Hazelwood claimed he was only practicing karate, but he was warned not to trespass on others’ property, according to police.
One of the most disturbing police reports during Hazelwood’s teenage years came on April 30, 2013, when his grandmother said he had taken knives and a sword from a gun safe. About six weeks before the call, the 16-year-old told his grandmother he was “going to blow” and “people were going to get hurt,” Marsha Hazelwood told police. But he didn’t know who or when, and he didn’t have a plan, he told his grandmother.
Questioned by an officer, Hazelwood said he didn’t want to hurt himself but had thought about it in the past.
Less than two years later, in February 2015, Hazelwood’s grandfather reported that a rifle was missing from a gun case, according to police. The 18-year-old was listed as a suspect, but he was not charged. At the time, he was a student at Compass Academy, an alternative school in Cherokee County that allows students to attend classes three times a week. Hazelwood had previously attended the Alternative Youth Academy in Roswell, a military-style school, according to a former classmate.
“This kid just didn’t seem normal,” Julio Avendaño previously told The AJC. “You could feel he was strange when you stood next to him.”
In recent months, Hazelwood’s social media posts varied between kind thoughts about his girlfriend to anger-filled quotes.
“Why the (expletive) should i live? Cant do (expletive) right,” he wrote in an Instagram post four months ago. “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.”
Hazelwood was arrested Aug. 3, about 48 hours after he allegedly killed Henderson and Davis. He has been charged with murder, and in a first court appearance, shook uncontrollably and appeared to be mumbling to himself, sometimes staring into the air. Zimmerman, the attorney, attributed his client’s behavior to nervousness.
Hazelwood’s next court hearing is scheduled for Aug. 19.
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