This happened about five miles from where my office is. The good news is that the "passer-by", Shawn Roberts, was not arrested and not charged after the shooting. I only hope I could do as well as Mr. Roberts did.
From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
http://www.ajc.com/news/content/metro/cobb/0905/14carjacking.html
The carjacker-kidnapper shot dead Monday by a passer-by in Cobb County had a conviction for sex crimes and has been tentatively connected to a rape last week in Acworth, police said Tuesday.
Despite his conviction for child molestation and statutory rape, Brian O'Neil Clark, 25, does not appear in the state's database for sexual offenders, and state officials were at a lost to explain why.
As details came out about her abductor Tuesday, so too did a picture of the victim. Kimberly Boyd, 30, was kidnapped at gunpoint shortly after leaving her office Monday morning, police said. She died when Clark turned into the path of a cement truck, causing a collision.
Friends say she was considering a shift from working mother to stay-at-home mom.
Investigators also revealed that Boyd had been shot as she struggled with her abductor. The coroner did not detail the extent of her wound, but police believe she was alive when the cement truck hit her Toyota Sequoia broadside.
As Clark was fleeing that accident, he was shot dead by motorist Shawn Roberts, who had seen Boyd and Clark struggling and followed as the car careened down U.S. 41 in Acworth. Cobb police Lt. Kevin Flynn, said Tuesday that Roberts, 31, was cooperating and appeared to have acted lawfully.
Roberts said he believes that killing Clark probably saved more lives.
Clark had a history of criminal offenses in Cherokee and Cobb counties, according to police and court records.
In April 2002, he was arrested in Illinois and returned to Georgia to face child molestation, statutory rape and burglary charges in Cobb, where he received an 18-month sentence, jail records show.
In Cherokee, Clark was convicted in 2004 of first-degree forgery and was released June 13 after a year in state prison.
Clark had been placed on the sexual offenders database operated by the Georgia Bureau of Investigations after his conviction in Cobb, GBI spokesman John Bankhead said. He was removed from the list while serving time for the forgery conviction, but should have been added after his release three months ago, Bankhead said.
"It's very peculiar that he isn't" on the list, Bankhead said Tuesday. "We're investigating to find out why."
As the police probe continues, the stunned community is reaching out to Boyd's grieving family and friends, who remember her as a dedicated family woman.
"She wanted to stay home with her kids and just be a mom," recalled Kathy Key-Reynolds, who runs a Budget rental office in Kennesaw. Boyd had asked her about six months ago to take over her truck rental business.
"I keep going through what happened and wondering if I had taken her store, would she have been home [Monday] morning and this somehow could have been avoided? It's a real tragedy."
A steady stream of family and friends dropped by the five-bedroom brick home where Boyd lived with husband Michael, stepson Nathan, 13, and their children: Connor, 5, and Chloe, 2. Guests sobbed as they embraced family members in the driveway.
"Kim was a wonderful mother. She loved life, her children, her husband," longtime family friend Tom Boggess said, breaking down. "I don't know of an enemy she ever had."
About 9:30 a.m. Monday, 911 calls began coming in from motorists who saw Boyd fighting with a man inside her Toyota SUV and also along Cobb Parkway near Lake Allatoona, police said.
"She fought for her life in those final moments, I'm sure of it," Boggess said.
Roberts lives about a mile from the Boyd home. He stopped by Monday night, and Boyd's husband thanked him, Boggess said.
That same night, Michael Boyd sobbed as he told his children their mother wasn't coming home, Boggess said.
"They're torn to pieces," Boggess said. Connor "keeps saying his misses his Emmy," the nickname he gave to his mother, he said.
Through family members, Michael Boyd declined to be interviewed but thanked the community for its support.
"We must have received 300 calls so far," Boggess said.
"We're all still in shock," said Scott Ryder, Boyd's brother-in-law. "All I'm going to say is this is obviously something that girl did not deserve."
A 1992 Wheeler High School graduate, Kimberly Diane McCollum married Michael Boyd about eight years ago, Boggess said. Two years ago, they moved into a new home in Bentwater, a sprawling golf community that straddles Paulding and Cobb counties.
Tuesday afternoon, the Budget truck rental store on Cherokee Street in Acworth was closed. Key-Reynolds, Boyd's friend and business associate, placed a dozen roses on the sidewalk outside. The card read: "Kim, we remember you kindly."
Meanwhile, Acworth police said Clark meets the description of a man who raped and carjacked an Acworth woman last week.
"Further evidence has been confirmed linking Clark to the rape," said Acworth police Officer Wayne Dennard. "However, DNA results from the GBI Crime Lab confirming he is last week's attacker will not be available for some time."
In the Sept. 6 attack, a man confronted the victim as she walked out onto her front porch. He forced her back into the house, raped her and then made her drive to withdraw money from a bank ATM, Dennard said.
Instead, the woman ran inside the bank, and the man, who the victim said had a gun and a knife, drove off in her Honda Accord, Dennard said. A gun recovered at Monday's crime scene may have been taken in last week's attack, Dennard said.
