← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Sertorius
Thread ID: 20277 | Posts: 6 | Started: 2005-09-18
2005-09-18 15:29 | User Profile
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
ajc.com > Metro > Cobb Fatal carjacking was a nightmare in broad daylight
Passer-by praised for quick thinking
By MICHAEL PEARSON, PAUL KAPLAN, DON PLUMMER The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Published on: 09/18/05
Through her office window, Becky Porter watched as the white Toyota SUV swerved across Cobb Parkway and crashed into a concrete truck.
Porter remembers a blur of action as she ran outside.
The driver jumped out. Porter heard three shots, then witnessed a scene that brings tears to her eyes.
"The driver ... had a gun in his hand, and the guy who was chasing him shot him," Porter said. "Then he hit his knees and started crying, because he turned around and saw the lady in the car was dead. I heard him say, 'Oh God.' "
The crime was as random as one could imagine.
A stranger carjacks a woman in broad daylight. There's a crash. The woman dies. Her abductor is shot and killed ââ¬â not by police but by an armed passer-by who gave chase in his truck.
That man, Shawn T. Roberts, has emerged as a hero for trying to help 30-year-old Kimberly Boyd and for saving other lives that police say might have been taken had the carjacker escaped.
"Scores of people were coming up to him and thanking him for what he did," said Scott Cannon, a friend of the Boyds who attended Kimberly's funeral Friday.
Roberts was among those who came to pay respects.
"He wanted everyone to know she didn't go down without a fight," said Brandon Henderson, a friend of the Boyds' who spoke to Roberts during the service.
"He said, 'Just so you all know, Kim was whipping his ass on the side of the road before he grabbed her and threw her in the car.'"
Although police say Roberts acted courageously, such acts have not always met with official approval. Cobb County District Attorney Pat Head and the grand jury will have the final word on Roberts' legal fate.
But this much is certain: In a matter of moments, in an act of violence and happenstance, three disparate lives became intertwined on that highway last Monday morning.
Unlikely carjack site
Kimberly Boyd owned a truck rental company in Acworth, a Cobb County community where the Appalachian Mountains yield to the granite Piedmont.
Boyd's business is in a strip mall, with a Big Lots, a Waffle House and several other businesses ââ¬â one of the last places you might notice someone lurking.
But Brian O'Neil Clark, a 25-year-old felon who had been released from prison three months earlier, was there.
That morning, Boyd left her home in Paulding County before 8 a.m. She dropped her 5-year-old son, Connor, at school and drove to her office. Police believe she was abducted by Clark in the parking lot.
At 9:25 that morning, Boyd used her ATM card to withdraw money outside a Wachovia bank about 5 miles away.
"We speculate that she went to that area hoping someone would see her and become suspicious," said Kevin Flynn, a homicide lieutenant with the Cobb County Police Department. "This indicates she was cool-headed and doing everything she could to survive because there were other banks closer to where she was abducted."
Roberts first saw Boyd and Clark about 1 1/2 miles south of the bank. Clark hit Boyd with his fist and a gun as the two struggled along Cobb Parkway, just past a bridge over Allatoona Reservoir.
At some point, Clark shot Boyd.
He then shoved her into the back seat of the SUV and sped away. As Boyd's SUV careened down Cobb Parkway, Roberts gave chase.
Then came the crash.
At Lake Acworth Drive, about a half-mile from where Roberts saw Boyd and Clark fighting, a cement truck moving northbound on Cobb Parkway crashed into the SUV as Clark tried to make a sharp left turn off the highway.
The accident's impact killed Boyd.
Clark emerged from the crumpled SUV and started running toward a gas station.
As Roberts approached, Clark raised his gun.
That's when Porter heard the shots from outside her office at Atlanta Tile Specialists.
Clark fell in a heap, dead.
Boyd, still inside her SUV, was already gone.
At the Cobb County 911 center, the call boards lit up "like a Christmas tree," Flynn said.
The first caller told an operator there had been a bad accident and someone had been shot.
Family came first
Kimberly Boyd put her children and her husband above everything else, including her business.
She used to take Connor and her 2-year-old daughter, Chloe, to work with her so she could spend time with them throughout the day.
"There were toys all over the floor of her store," said Janeice Confer, who manages a truck rental franchise nearby. "She was a very devoted mother."
She spent two years at the University of Georgia in the mid-1990s. Mike Boyd, eight years her senior, went to college in Tennessee.
"The only thing I ever heard those two argue about was Georgia-Tennessee," Henderson, a friend of the Boyds', said with a chuckle. "Kim would call me for stats ââ¬â'Quick, how many points did Georgia score off Tennessee last year?' "
The couple recently got custody of Mike's 13-year-old son, Nathan, from a previous marriage, and Kimberly told her friends she didn't think she could raise all three children while running a business.
So she was looking for someone to buy her out.
But Monday, she had a customer coming in at 8:30 a.m. She had to make sure the truck was ready to be picked up.
Chloe had a cold, so Mike stayed home.
Kids first, work second.
"It was a family that had everything together," said Scott Cannon, who coached Nathan's baseball team in Woodstock.
The day after his mother was abducted and killed, Connor went to his room and drew a picture. He asked his dad if his mother would ever see it.
"Yes," Michael Boyd told his son.
"She'll love the picture, and she'll be with you forever."
The drawing was in Kimberly's casket Friday when she was buried.
It's a picture of a teddy bear, with the words "I LOVE YOU MOMMY."
Hailed as a hero
Shawn T. Roberts lives in the sprawling Bentwater subdivision in Paulding County. It's only about a mile from the Boyds' home, but it doesn't appear as if the two had ever met.
Roberts, 31, owns a home theater and burglar alarm company and carried a licensed pistol.
Before he stopped speaking publicly about the incident, he said he had no choice, that had he not acted, more people could have been harmed.
And that's how his actions are being seen, in metro Atlanta and across the country.
Web sites and blogs are filled with postings crediting Roberts for his fast thinking and for trying to save lives.
"This guy probably saved another 25+ victims ..." a poster with the screen name "Taurus" said on a message board at [url]www.packing.org[/url], a Web site for advocates of concealed-carry laws. "Shawn Roberts is a hero in my book."
Police and community leaders seem to agree.
"You drive by a man beating a woman on the side of the road, you have to do something," said Deanne Bonner, president of the Cobb County chapter of the NAACP.
Said Flynn, the homicide lieutenant: "I want to stress that ... we have found no violations of Georgia law. That being said, the district attorney will make the final decision."
Although Roberts knew nothing about Clark's background at the time of the shooting, police seem to think there's a good chance others might have been hurt had Roberts done nothing.
In April 2002, Clark was arrested in Illinois and brought back to Georgia to face child molestation, statutory rape and burglary charges in Cobb County, where he received an 18-month sentence, jail records show.
In May 2004, Clark was charged in Cherokee County for first-degree forgery. He served a year in state prison and was released June 13.
Police also suspect Clark is responsible for a rape, carjacking and robbery in Acworth on Sept. 6.
In that case, police believe Clark beat and raped a woman, then forced her to drive to a nearby bank so he could withdraw money from the bank's ATM.
During that attack, Clark stole a gun from the woman's home, police said.
That gun was finally found Monday ââ¬â near Clark's body after he was shot.
Contact Michael Pearson at [email]mpearson@ajc.com[/email]; Don Plummer at [email]dplummer@ajc.com[/email]; Paul Kaplan at [email]pkaplan@ajc.com[/email] [url=http://www.ajc.com/news/content/metro/cobb/0905/18carjack.html]http://www.ajc.com/news/content/metro/cobb/0905/18carjack.html[/url] [img]http://img.coxnewsweb.com/B/08/96/32/image_1832968.jpg[/img] Victim. [img]http://img.coxnewsweb.com/B/07/95/32/image_1832957.jpg[/img] Killer. [img]http://img.coxnewsweb.com/B/07/96/32/image_1832967.jpg[/img] Gentleman. [img]http://img.coxnewsweb.com/B/06/95/32/image_1832956.gif[/img]
2005-09-18 16:27 | User Profile
With that guy's record, he should have never been released.
2005-09-18 18:07 | User Profile
Of course the AJC did not post the perp's race. Sad story. I hope that part of Georgia is conservative and that the man will get a fair trial. If it happened in metro Atlanta, an all-black jury would convict the man to life.
2005-09-18 23:36 | User Profile
SK,
Those photos did come from the paper. I know you are surprised, for I was as well and had expected to have to search for them. Usually, they attempt to ignore this. Here's another surprise: [QUOTE]"You drive by a man beating a woman on the side of the road, you have to do something," said Deanne Bonner, president of the Cobb County chapter of the NAACP.[/QUOTE] This is even more shocking than the paper printing the photos. In the past, the local NAACP always either come out on the side of the perp or they stay silent.
2005-09-19 15:41 | User Profile
It's too bad that the woman (very pretty, BTW) didn't make it out of this situation alive. At least the nigger got what he had coming to him. And the AG's office has no business charging the white guy with anything, since he clearly did the right thing. Hell, he should get a medal.
More whites need to arm themselves -- legally if possible, otherwise illegally. The ability of innocent people to protect themselves takes absolute priority over stupid, tyrannical laws to the contrary. It's not for any politician or cop to say otherwise.
2005-09-19 19:12 | User Profile
Angler,
I just love how this DA passed the buck to the grand jury. I guess he's scared of the media and the Left in this area. If he had any integrity, he would dump this investigation, for as you noted, there isn't anything to investigate here. I wish this predator had either been kept under lock and key or shot elsewhere. He never should have been released.