Hundreds of people can now say they’ve made it into a new North Georgia newspaper.
But it isn’t an accomplishment worth bragging about.
Each week, a new cast of characters become mug shot celebrities in Just Busted, a $1 tabloid that features page after page of jail book-in shots.
Just Busted started showing up in convenience stores last spring. Its northwest and northeast Georgia issues cover 19 counties, including Cobb, Gwinnett, Forsyth and Cherokee.
The Chattanooga-based newspaper’s publisher and co-founder, Wanda Gilham, said her mission is to make people more aware of what’s happening in their communities.
Gilham said she was a victim of a crime twice in 2008. First, she was swindled by a printer she hired to distribute a coupon booklet in Florida. Then, her car was stolen by a neighbor.
She started Just Busted as a local tabloid in 2009, and now it has blossomed into a larger operation covering parts of Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia and Oklahoma. There is no website; the only nod to the age of digital media is a Facebook page.
Gilham is tight-lipped about her circulation figures and profits, but she said she makes enough money to support herself.
“To somebody who was very materialistic it wouldn’t be (enough), but I do pay my bills and I do work 70 hours a week,” she added.
Gilham said her tabloid helps police solve crimes and pressures fugitives in their “Most Wanted” section to turn themselves in.
Most readers think it’s a hoot, but some bristle at having their visit to the Big House publicly outed.
Nathan Sellers, 25, of Knoxville, Tenn., was arrested in August for nonpayment of child support. He said the charges that appeared under his mug shot in the tabloid incorrectly stated he was jailed for more serious offenses.
That hasn’t stopped Sellers from spending a dollar to leaf through the paper on occasion. He finds it “quite comical.”
Randy Heatherly, a 30-year-old Dalton resident, isn’t laughing.
His father and stepmother saw him in the tabloid’s lineup following a May 27 arrest for driving around with a busted windshield, no insurance and no child safety belt. Heatherly said he wasn’t aware the insurance on his truck had lapsed.
But what really chafes him is that the charges listed beneath his mug shot were incorrect. He worries that the inaccuracy will hurt his job search.
“It’s invading people’s privacy, I think,” Heatherly said. “It’s just weird the way they post stuff that’s not true. I don’t know if they can do that or not.”
Lt. Nancy Chadwick, of the Whitfield County Sheriff’s Office, confirmed Heatherly was arrested for traffic violations. She didn’t know if the wrong information was recorded by the Sheriff’s Office or misprinted by Just Busted. After searching the jail’s booking records, she couldn’t find any indication that Heatherly’s charges had been entered incorrectly.
Chadwick’s opinion about the paper itself is simple: “If it’s open record, you’re open to it.”
The publication was sued for $200,000 in September in Hamilton County, Tenn., by Horace Hatcher. Hatcher’s attorneys said Just Busted printed his picture in the section “Sex offenders near Carver Outdoor Pool.”
According to the lawsuit, Hatcher had been removed from the Sex Offender Registry on July 28 because he complied with restrictions and did not commit additional sexual offenses for 10 years.
Gilham said Hatcher was still listed on the registry when her staff was preparing to go to press.
Archie L. Speights, a Canton defense attorney, advertises in Just Busted. He said the tabloid is selling well, and he has fielded several calls from people wondering if there’s anything they can do to stop it.
For the most part, he said, the answer is: “no.”
He pointed out that there are disclaimers on every page of the publication that say all content provided is “deemed to be in the public domain” and that those pictured are innocent until proven guilty.
If anyone is sensitive to publicity about crime records, it ought to be Gilham. She pleaded guilty to a felony battery charge in Florida under the name Wanda Jane Kesteloot in 2002 and served 30 days in jail. She also spent 10 days in jail in 1998 for a traffic violation.
Asked how she would feel if her mug shots were disseminated, Gilham said: “Now I have a whole ’nother attitude, but I really don’t want to talk about that.”
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