Saturday Nov. 23, 11: 38 p.m.: Lucilla Harris, 72, is observed swerving on East Fairview Road in Henry County and is pulled over by police. Harris explains she is trying to drive to Atlanta. The officer gives her directions and sends her on her way.
Nov. 24, 3:41 a.m.: A home surveillance camera on Breezewood Court in Stockbridge captures Harris walking outside the home. She is seen walking across the back deck toward the door, then back across the deck. She appears to be wearing a nightgown with a coat.
Nov. 25, 3:36 p.m.: Harris' niece calls 911 to report Harris missing. An APD officer responds to Harris' Granger Drive home and begins an investigation. The niece does not have a key to the home and a locksmith is called to allow the officer access.
Nov. 25, 3:47 p.m.: Harris' 2005 Saturn is found abandoned in Henry County. Police run the tag through an online database called the Georgia Crime Information Center, but there is no information regarding the vehicle.
Nov. 25, 6:30 p.m.: Information regarding Harris and her vehicle are entered into the GCIS system.
Nov. 27, 8:16 p.m.: Atlanta Police issue a Mattie's Call directing jurisdictions statewide to be on the lookout for the missing woman.
Nov. 29, 9:45 p.m.: Henry County Police announce that the Saturn found earlier in the week belongs to Harris. Officers search the area, but are unable to locate other signs of the woman. Atlanta officers are called to the scene to impound the car.
Nov. 30, 10:28 p.m.: Harris is found dead about 50 feet from where her car was discovered.
Dec. 2: The Henry County coroner concludes Harris likely died of exposure.
On Saturday night a week ago, a Henry County officer on DUI patrol stopped a swerving car. Instead of a drunk, he encountered an elderly Atlanta woman lost and looking for home some 13 miles to the north. The officer gave her directions and sent 72-year-old Lucilla Harris on her way.
A little more than three days later, a deputy on patrol in Walker County noticed something odd — an elderly man with a couple of leashed dogs standing by a mailbox. It was 2:30 a.m. and the wind chill was 20 degrees. The man, Ronald Westbrook, also 72, assured the deputy he lived up the hill and started walking in that direction. The squad car rolled away.
Harris and Westbrook both suffered from dementia and acted strangely enough to attract attention from law officers. But neither person had been reported lost and both had enough cognitive wherewithal to parry the helpful inquiries from police.
What happened in these cases is not uncommon and law enforcement agencies across Georgia are trying to change that. Officers, in a relatively new initiatives, are being trained to look past the initial assurances by elderly people that they are fine and to determine if they need help even it they had not been reported missing.
Within 90 minutes of being questioned by the deputy, Westbrook was dead, shot in the chest by a nervous resident who thought he was a menace. And some time after her traffic stop, Harris drove the circuitous streets into a wooded area surrounded by suburban homes. She got out of her car, wandered around looking for help and ultimately laid down and died of exposure.
Ginny Helms, a vice president of the Alzheimer’s Association state chapter, said the organization helps train 2,500 officers a year on how to deal with adults with dementia.
Georgia has an estimated 120,000 residents with Alzheimer’s and more than 60 percent of them wander off at some point and get lost, Helms said. Almost a third of those lost are driving.
In 2006, the state instituted Mattie’s Call, which is similar to an Amber Alert, for missing adults with dementia or other infirmities. Since then, the number of alerts increased fivefold to 150 in 2012. And by June 30 this year, there have been 105 Mattie’s Calls.
Helms said when officers encounter possibly disoriented people, the officer should give his or her name to the person and ask them to remember it. Then the officer should ask what time it is and also where they are.
“Then the officer should ask them to remember (the officer’s) name and if they can’t answer those three questions, there’s a problem,” said Helms.
GBI director Vernon Keenan said his organization started a new training initiative in September and has posted four scenarios on the department’s website showing lost elderly people both walking or driving.
The videos teach officers “how to have a dialogue and how to solicit information to make a decision whether that person should continue to drive that vehicle or not,” Keenan said. “You don’t want to overreact but you don’t want an officer to turn his back.”
“It’s a problem now and will escalate as the (elderly) population escalates,” Keenan said. “We know this is a pressing issue and this is on the forefront of progressive law enforcement.”
In fact, The GBI is holding a training seminar Dec. 18 and the International Association of Chiefs of Police, which has been pushing the issue, is scheduled to hold a national seminar on the issue this week.
Association training literature said people with dementia “can navigate a casual conversation that is actually devoid of facts or specificity.”
One training pamphlet states: “Never provide directions if a person seems disoriented or confused, as she or she may not realize that he/she is lost.”
Tuesday afternoon, an Atlanta police captain defended the department’s investigation in the Harris case, stating the missing woman did not meet the criteria for a Mattie’s Call to be issued.
Harris’ family did not report her missing until last Monday afternoon, about the same time that Henry County police were running tag information on her Saturn abandoned behind a home on a cul-de-sac. There was nothing in the system at the time that said anything was wrong. She was discovered dead Saturday in a treeline about six houses away.
“She had no care-taker, managed her own affairs, paid her own bills,” Capt. Paul Guerrucci told reporters. “She was self-sufficient. She lived on her own and took care of herself. That’s a person that at the time appears mostly competent.”
Furthermore, family members told police Harris had not never been clinically diagnosed with a mental disorder, Guerrucci said.
“Mattie’s Calls just aren’t generated on a person because they are missing,” Guerrucci said.
Harris’ family has told other media that she could be very convincing that she had no problems.
That appeared to be the case up north in Walker County. Sheriff Steve Wilson said his officer “felt like (Westbrook) was OK; physically, he appeared to be OK.”
Ninety minutes later, Westbrook, dressed in a light jacket wandered a few blocks away to a house that had a lighted porch. He had walked a total of four hours and three miles from his home. At almost 4 a.m. he rang the doorbell of a home and jiggled the knob. The man living there came out and shot Westbrook in the chest with a .40-caliber slug. Authorities are still determining if they will charge Joe Hendrix, 34, with a crime.
“There’s plenty of ifs here,” sheriff Wilson said, referring to Westbrook’s earlier encounter with the deputy. “You can only do so much. Law enforcement can never be trained too much. You can’t get them all. You’ll miss some. It just happened here.”
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