Christa Norris drove more than three hours from her home in Huntsville, Ala., to see the man police say has confessed to killing her best friend.
“I wanted to see how big he was, what his voice sounded like,” said Norris, referring to 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. Presley — who police say has admitted to killing four metro Atlantans, including Norris’ friend Karen Pearce, between late September and early December — waived his preliminary hearing.
Norris and another friend had dinner with Pearce, a Smyrna hairstylist, on the night she died. Pearce left Leon’s in Decatur first, while her other friends decided to stay for a drink.
On the way to her car, police say, she met Presley, 34, who fatally shot her in a dark parking lot.
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 killing was planned in advance, 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 allegedly shot Dorian Jenkins, 42, and Tommy Mims, 68, multiple times as they slept on Atlanta’s streets, wrapped in blankets. Pearce was killed Dec. 7.
Detectives told Norris the alleged serial killer 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,” McCrary said in an interview last month. “They’ve gone from being losers to being gods.”
The investigation into Presley continues, Atlanta Police Detective 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.
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 Presley’s trial.
“I keep thinking how scared [Pearce] was,” she said.
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