ARC ROAD-Tony Tiffin

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The Gwinnett County, Georgia Police Department was formed by tough, honorable men who were brought in to clean up the county after the sheriff made moonshining his personal business. With a low budget, officers had to buy their own uniforms, guns, even bullets. The police had to take anyone with a pulse who could stand upright, even with the odds against them. The police department grew into a force feared by the

criminals and respected by county citizens. Late one night in spring of nineteen sixty four, the police in Gwynett County and everywhere learned just how far that respect would go in saving their lives. In a tight spot. Officers Jesse Gravitt, Ralph Davis, and Jerry Everett responded to a report of suspicious activity on a desolate County road named ARC. What

they found was a kind of criminal. They were completely unprepared for a psychopath that would do anything to avoid the consequences of his actions, including the cold blooded killing of three county police officers. This began one of the most intense murder investigations that Georgia had ever seen. ARC Road is the story of those officers. That investigation and the followed from those horrific murders that charged changed the

way law enforcement officers are trained. ARC Road the horrific murders of three police officers in Gwinnett County, Georgia that changed law enforcement forever. With my special guest, journalist and author Tony Tiffin. Welcome to the program, and thank you very much for this interview Tony Tiffin.

their funerals as the dark Days of Gwenette County. It still holds over as probably always will.

where not much had grabbed hole. But like all of Atlanta, that was soon to change, but Gwinette County was farmers desolate in many ways. But the dirt roads were like spiderwebs went throughout the county and as a result, folks kind of lived on their own. In the case of Arc Road in the early sixties, Arc Road was two mile long stretch of road, but only two residents were along the entire two mile stretch. So we were desolate and we were kind of quiet. Yet we could get

to Atlanta, downtown Atlanta within generally an hour's drive. Until the road started improving, then we can get down there in twenty minutes. But until then we were a county all to ourselves, formed really as little Indian reservations which had sprung up along the Chattahoochee River, and from there we grew into a little small towns and have had at that time and have always had an Indian kind of a tradition about us. We still celebrate Indian holidays

and things of that nature. But it was a mixture. It was the Deep South, it was the Old South, and not a whole lot went on outside of your little neighborhood. So we were self sufficient people that usually had our own little gardens and our own little plots and so on and so forth. We're all saying back then, if you wanted to eat, you either had to grow it or slaughter at one to get food on your table. And that's pretty much the way we live. Food was

a priority, Shelter was a priority. Family and God were right up there at the top of the list, in no specific order, each having equal measure.

your general store, and that's what it was. A general store generally a two mile hike to get to it. Trading was okay with folks. We would take a chicken down there, and usually a live chicken would get you a bag of candy, a Coca Cola and a pack of cigarettes. We just did buy our own resources and Moonshining was just an old traditional thing that the boys up in the hills, better known as hillbillies. That's what they did. But we didn't see any harm in it. Though.

It was one of those major platforms or major stumps that the politicians would come through here and throw at us, as if we were appreciating what they were saying. Well, we didn't appreciate it at all. That's why in nineteen sixty we hired the biggest still owner and elected him as our new high sheriff. So we did. We were

tired of empty promises and things of that nature. The old saying was you could drive a car at the speed limit down a dirt road, throw a rock out of the driver's window, and chances are it would clank when it would hit the ground because it would hit us. Still, it wasn't that prevalent, but it was a loose kind of society where gambling parlors. Keeping in mind, though the irony of it all was Gwinnett was a dry county

at the time. If you wanted to buy a liquor by a drink, you'd have to go into the city of Atlanta. So we just did what we wanted to do and got around. And it was people used Gwinnett County to satisfy desires one way or another, and so we had the gambling parlors, the shothouses of the moonshine.

But a lot of the moonshine that was made around here was either for self consumption or they'd pack it into the back of that old ford and send it down to Atlanta and points actually further, because here in the North Georgia area where Arc Road took place is hills and woods and streams, perfect ingredient for hauling a couple of old drums up into the woods and start of fire, and are all saying was back then, good

liquor comes starts with a blue flame. So we just had a good time doing that and using our own resources to make moonshine. But it was not like everybody was falling over drunk on illegal liquor. That didn't happen at all.

The sheriff had come in, as I said, the biggest still owner in the county, so it didn't take Also keep in mind, Dan, before I get too far ahead of myself, that the police department started with only two patrol officers. The sheriff's department never had much more than about six or eight deputies. But they were of our new high Sheriff's making. They did what he said to do, and when they couldn't get paid or anything for that he explained, well, you make your money out there on

those roads. The police commissioner came in to attempt at bringing about law and order into the county with the new police department and the integrity of those he first brought into, such as Chief Police Jobell MJ. Pucket. Those assistant chief of police were honorable men. They were upstanding characters. They believed in one thing, and that was the peace and quality and the growth of Gwinnett County in their own way, and they went on to hire up a

few more boys. But the police department was not a glamorous job by any means. They would go for it to be glamorous, but they only paid the patrol officers two hundred dollars a month. They didn't give them any of their own equipment. They didn't provide them anything that they needed. So the police officer, if he joined the force, and not a whole lot, came busting down the old

jail house door to get onto the force. They had to buy their own uniforms, their own guns, their own boots, their own bullets, and it was a very tough beginning. In fact, it was not the first time that the police had the County had tried a police department. It was rather the second time. The first time had failed. They just couldn't get any officers to do the trip.

So this is where we are introduced to Ralph Davis, Jesse Gravitt, and Jerry Everett in this new police force.

got the job done whenever he needed to. Jerry Everett was a smart came from a family of police officers, was a smart officer, started at a young age, and by the time he was twenty eight years of age in nineteen sixty four, he had already gone through just about anything a Gwinnett cop could go through that day in time. There were no radios that the almost line of sight, if you will, There was no backup police officer. Whatever he got into he had to get himself out

of and it was up to him. Gwinnette, when they fir first started the police department, they did partner up so they had two patrol car with a total of eight patrol officers and in four cars. But if you got yourself into trouble, and believe me, in North Georgia, especially Gwinett County, could easily get yourself in trouble. There were those out there that just did not have any respect for lawman. A police officer was not a friendly guy. So you had a mixture of characters in the county.

Those that never interacted with the police, those that from time to time would get a ticket, and those that were out to do anything against the police that they possibly could, but back in those days, they had no training, they had nothing to go along with, So it was a personal reward that the police officers got. But you mentioned their names. They're very real those people. The names are not changed in this book. Those are real characters from Gwinett County back in the sixties.

unthankful position. Tell us about what ARC Road is, and tell us about the call that comes in and why and and and how Davis and Everett's car is sent on this call.

a thorough road from Beaver Ruin to Pleasant Hill. It was a two mile long stretch of a dirt road and it wasn't very well maintained, so it was a tough road to get across. In fact, I've had many people tell me back in the Ark Road day they could not drive their passioner car the full length of Arc Road. It was just too ruddy and too narrow and just unimproved to say the least. But it is the story about in that day, Dan, you have to understand also, and these are tough things to do because

we're talking over half a century ago. But the police officers in that day, with no training, they really weren't emphasized. It wasn't emphasized upon the citizens that we had a police force to answer to the call to the bad guys, because there weren't that many bad guys there. Today, it's

a different world. If you open up the newspapers, you're going to murders, and you're going to see robbery and id theft and you know, well, there wasn't any of that in Gwenett County hardly back in there, so our police officers didn't have to go around investigating crimes of murder. In fact, it was because of this inexperience that brought in outside forces when this happened. But even in today's time we hear about police officers being murdered all the time.

But even today it would be a shocker. I dare say someone was to wake up and read the headline that three county police officers were marched into the woods, handcuffed the three of them together and shot the guns there three guns used to kill them, with sixteen rounds finding their mark in the officers' heads. That would be an alarm even today's time. So imagine the ripple. First of all, the lightning bolt that penetrated everybody in this

county because we knew those three police officers. But then the ripple effect it had not just in Georgia, but there were people in Stockholm reading the headlines the next day in their newspaper. Locally here or I should say, in the States, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, all heard about it that night, All three that at that time.

There were three networks on TV, the Walter Cronkites, the Brinkleys, so on and so forth that reported it that evening April seventeenth, nineteen sixty four, and it led their televised news. Of course, here in Atlanta, it was just unbelievable. We just couldn't believe I came about in this story. My dad was a military police officer who died while active duty, and that was in Massachusetts. We followed the casket down

here to Atlanta. And next thing I know is I'm living as a ten year old kid here in Atlanta for so years when this incident took place, and it reminded me. It reeled me back to my dad saying, if you're ever in trouble or you need help, seek out the nearest police officer. So when I read those headlines, and of course on the Atlanta news it was everywhere, I could not believe that someone would not just hurt a police officer, but murder a police officer, and not

just one, but three together. So on April the seventeenth, early in the morning, they were found off of Arc Road, to the side in a stretch of woods that they could not see from the little road itself until they started walking around the woods, and then they finally saw the three corpses lying on the ground in the woods, handcuffed together and virtually a pool of blood. Floating in a pool of blood.

also find a smoldering sixty three oldsmobile. Tell us about that? What do police know? And how do they proceed from there? Of course, they're outraged. They want they want to capture these criminals. What do they do?

Bull Bowen. They were investigating a car fire, and he had asked or requested that Car twenty nine, Jerry Everett and Ralph Davis come pick him up and take him to his home. They had not yet gotten in this radio call from Prewitt, nor had Ac Mills called Pruit to complain. There's two people out on my road, two cars. They look like they're smoking cigarettes, they look like they're talking. They're right up the street from me, and there's not supposed to be anybody out here that time of night.

He was correct. Ark Road was not passable at night. There were no lights, street lights, there was nothing there. It was contingent on the mount of light put out by the moon and stars, as always was in this case. They didn't know where Arc Road was. There was no

GPS on the car. So as they were taking mister Gravit home that night, Jerry Everett, driving Car twenty nine, happened to see an old wooden sign that had inscribed on it Arc and so he turned down that from the other side from which the bad guys and mister Mills came came in. Mister Mills lived on what we call the south end of the road. It is divided by a creek, and then there's the north end of the road, and at the time that creek had a

small rickety bridge crossing it. Patrol Car twenty nine came from the north entrance and as they came up over the hill on Arc Road, almost to the completion of Arc Road, there they saw them. If it was ten minutes either way, perhaps they wouldn't have the Truett, Williams and Evans, the bad guys would have been gone in ten minutes and none of this would have happened. But it just continued. All the things that would occur. Also,

just more irony happened. Jerry Everett had just bought what is now described as a bug a backup gun, and he had it in his pocket. But just moments before they got the call to go pick up mister Gravit, Jerry had unloaded his derringer and handed it to Walt Tungue who mister tong had a diner, and they were having their midnight meal there. When he unloaded that derringer, Ralph Davis came running into the diner said, we've got

to pick up mister Gravitt. Jerry grabbed the gun from Walt, but he did not reload the single bullet he had in his pocket. Things would have been totally different had that call not come in because Pruitt wasn't on the phone, had mister Mills's dog count not barked all night to keep them awake, Had these guys not chosen road to take the license and registration off of the stolen car and then moving on for things they were going to do with it later. All of these things, just if one,

could not have happened without the other. But because they all happened together, we ended up with three of our better county police officers in the woods and not found until twelve hours of thereabouts later. So it was all just a matter of the planets and the stars were just out of phase that night for these three guys.

a detective squad, we didn't have investigators. We just had a handful of patrol officers with no experience even in that phase of law enforcement, let alone in investigating a triple homicide where no clues were left whatsoever at the scene. The GBI Georgia Bureau of Investigation and their strong arm, the Georgia State Patrol, they did patrol in that area, the Highway I eighty five in that area. They had two officers that came down to the scene when Chief

Bell led out a cry for help. Something's not right. But before they had discovered the bodies. So by the time they had discovered the bodies, the State Patrol already had officers here. Other little small towns already had police officers here. But it was the State Patrol officers that said, they're not going to be able to solve this unless we put our finest investigators in the state has to offer in on this case, and that's what they did. From that point on, the Georgia State Patrol became the

law enforcement party of all all of Gurnett. So they came in and Gwinnett, the Gwennette Police, the Gwinnett officers, Gwenet sheriff, all every citizen in Gwinete took a deep breath of relief the moment we knew that somebody else was investigating this crime. We couldn't do it, and there wasn't. It wasn't going to happen that way. So they came in and threw them detectives Cheek and Crumpleton. Crunkleton came from the cab County. Mister Cheek came from the Sheriff's apartment.

Mister Crunkleton came from the police department. He was in charge of the cab county's vice squad and Homerly Cheek was involved with the Sheriff's apartment as an investigator for the sheriff, So these guys started to know what was

going on. But when we ran into mc perry just a few days after they had everybody got together, uh and God was getting over the funerals are trying to They started perusing through Gwinnett County to the approval, to the request and approval of Jobell, our police chief at the time, and it is that time way up in the north end of the county up in Beauford, Georgia. They found mc carrie Perry at Red's service station, and Detective Cheek already knew Perry and his long arrest record,

so they just started asking me questions. Perry was involved in stealing cars, he had been he'd been a punk all his life, and he told Detective Cheek indirectly things that they were able to piece together and put together, and that's where the investigation went. But I'll go back to the part Dan about the county being small, wasn't

very much populated. When it came to alex Evans, the former Gwinnett County sheriff deputy who was dismissed from the sheriff department and would later go on to do jail time with both our ex high sheriff for his me got caught. Finally, they put that bunch away because he was running law enforcement into the ground.

one time good friends. He's the guy that everybody felt could have been the killer in this case. And we know how that turned out as well. But then with that lead and a couple of other good breaks in the case as far as evidence was concerned, the outside forces and eventually did Georgia Bureau of Investigation came in and solve that crime. But they although they had solved, they knew who there was three people involved. They knew

who those three people were. There was no evidence of any kind that would allow them to go to the grand jury and get indictments for these guys except for one of the bad guys turned state witness, and when he did, he ratted the other two guys out, and eventually, eighteen months after the crime, those two were found guilty. But it was also the planets and the stars got back in line to go through the investigation and solve this crime. And that's what Georgia finally took a breath

of relief about. But that's when really the sadness came back into play. But mc perry, they were all integral. They all played the important roles and not just the investigation but their testimony because it was the twelve man jury that they had to convince, along with Wade True's testimony against his two partners. It was that twelve man jury they had to confest convict. I'm sorry to impress enough to get a conviction out of the deals what I'm trying to say, But at any rate, they all

were played an integral part. But they had to piece together little pieces of this from this guy, this much from this witness, and on so forth, and accumulated quite a number of witnesses that they eventually brought in. The trial itself ran for four days. Each trial there were co trials, one for Alex Evans, the other for Vincent Eugene Williams, and those two trials co trials were in October the night teen sixty five. Each trial lasted four days.

Each trial ended with a three hour jury conviction. Shall we say it didn't take long at all to convict him, but it was proof positive. In fact, we'll talk about the research and all. But I had the great pleasure of knowing Robert high Toower for some time, and mister high Tower told me that there were certain things they could not have accomplished without way through its testimony. But

in this case they got they got it right. And he said, Tony, back days of sixties law enforcement, we didn't always get it right, but this one we got right.

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dot com slash murder. Now, Tony, we have to go back because we have for the audience, skipped over some of these incredible hurdles and challenges that it seems like this open and shutcase where everyone, as you mentioned, knows that this Evans is cape of something like this. A dirty cop had no business even being a cop in the first place. As you write, there were sort of foisted on the department and he was a crooked cop for a six year tenure as a police officer. But

this venison events in Williams and then this weighed through it. Now, when you talk about you had the privilege of talking to Robert Hightower, you talk about the investigation stalling at some point despite everybody knowing what went on. There was no prince left. There was just the horror of these these three officers being shot in the face, in the head with their own revolvers and then handcuffed together in

this horror spectacle for other officers to find. So tell us about Robert high Tower and his strategy, because this book is chock full of the fascinating dialogue and exchanges between police and these suspects trying to bring these people to justice.

so I've had that comment. This is harsh. It is harsh because this is not a story of cupcakes and ice cream. So it is a dialogue that a lot of the players, of course are long gone, but their family members told me, oh, this is what he would have said, or this is what would have have happened, and so on and so forth. Mister high Tower. Robert high Tower was a very very colorful yet very strict law enforcement officer. He came with an FBI background Washington,

DC Metro Police. He was into the major Crimes unit, and he came back home to Georgia so he could be a professor at the War College in Milledgeville, and he also was involved with law enforcement. Of course, the investigation had just gone stale though. They had the names of two people right from the get go, and that was Vincent Eugene Williams and Alex Evans. Truett's name never appeared until they started unfolding these little clues that amounted

to who could have done it? So they would everybody was a suspect, as alex Evans once said, but when it stalled, it stalled for good. You had a very very good GBI agent in the name of Arthur Hutchins. He was a terrific man, but he could only go so far with what he had, and they had reached a roadblock. High Tower. They invited him into the GBI headquarters in downtown Atlanta, just to think he was meeting

the boys. I can recall Bob telling me Tony, they showed me this little room, and inside of it had six months worth of investigation written and documented in there, some as little as on a book of matches, a name, a phone number, something. So I decided I was going to go all the way back from the very beginning and start anew because High Tower was very impressed with the fact that this crime had stalled, but they would consider him the man to come in and save it.

A lot of people's hides were on the line here because the public was still so upset about this crime and why it wasn't getting solved. So when mister high Tower came in, he just emptied all the files in this little office that had given him and started straightening the mess out, which led him to a couple of people that had not been interviewed but he felt were crucial, and he gave it a fresh angle to see this whole thing through. And then he went out and started

his own investigation. When he came across the name of Wade through it. He got that name through other people, but there was a connection between Truett and Williams, and then High Tower would go down to the Florida State Prison where Wade and Vincent and Alex were all doing time for a previous crime involving the hijacking of a bonded liquor truck that came through the Atlanta area back

in that day. So they were doing their Senate says from that conviction, and High Tower went in to interview True. After he got trough it, he said, I don't need Vincent Williams or Alex Evans anymore because Truett had made a confession and he got it. High Tower got it out of True in High Tower's way of doing things, and it was quite interesting the story he said. But he was able at that time after truest confession and asking him very important questions that other investigators just had

answer had open answers to. There were questions that they didn't know and that would have really put the piece of the puzzle together, such as evidence at the old crime scene that True explained where High Tower would find it out in the pasture, an old license plate, and High Tower found it and he told me, Tony, that proved to me that he was here at that crime scene and that he's the guy that took that license

plate off of that stolen car. And everything from that point on started to fall in play with everything he said, and High Tower played along being the nice guy with Truett for some time. But Truett never fouled up. He never tripped over his own words. He remained solid to his conviction that he had given High Tower, and all through about an eight month period he stayed right on course with that conviction. Oh, I'm sorry with that confession.

These guys, Truett and Williams were just punks. They were car thieves, penny any crooks saw and so forth. They were not capable of murder. To get to know them, you start to understand that they were not the two kind of guys you would want his neighbors, not even close. But they were not capable of murder. So it was only then that you have to draw a line. And let me just move ahead and tell you this is

how High Tower solved the crime. No one saw the actual murder or the mechanics of the murders of those three police officers, Nor did the State of Georgia have to prove the mechanics of these murders. They just had to prove that they did, in fact happen. And these

are the three guys that perpetrated that murder. But when Truett gave up his confession for many reasons why I think your listeners would understand it was driving him crazy at the thought of what had happened and the eventual notion that he was going to get caught, and if he got caught on his own, the chair waited for him.

And so that was the whole point of mister high Tower's brilliance was really he could come in there and open up the cold case and get it back on track and get enough evidence to where mister Merrit, the county solicitor at the time, was able to convince a grand jury. Let's get on with these trials. These are the guys who did it.

put them together. But you had twenty five thirty actual witnesses come in and say a little something in each trial. They used essentially the same witnesses in the co trials, but they used the witnesses to put together little pieces here and there that established a timeline who saw, who where, who was doing what and why and when and things of that nature. And because of that they were then able to after putting a High Tower primarily was the

one who did it. After putting everything into a specific timeline, then High Tower was able to say, Okay, I know what happened. I'm going to present that evidence face to face to our boy through it down on the floor of men's state prison down there federal prison, and see what his expressions are. As High Tower said, I could look a man in the eye, and I could tell you if he's being truthful much better than I can read it out of a second third hand report that

came out of a file cabinet. So when he put all his files together, he put together a timeline of things of that nature, all involving this crime. Then he realized, I've got him. This is them's. They had all the proof and they were able to convincingly bring that to the county solicitor and put together a case that the grand jury said go. And it was pretty rock solid case at that time. But without Robert high Tower, this

crime would have never been solved. If the crime had never been solved, then we wouldn't be on this phone right now because I did have the opportunity. I don't know if I would consider the privilege or how I would describe it of going to interview alex Evans in prison, and as I spoke to him and talked to him about this case, he continuously George's longest tenured life serving prisoner denied to me. Alex Evans told me, Tony, I

don't ever want to be paroled. Parole means that I did it, and they want to get rid of me. I want to be fully pardoned, or you can take your parole and stick it. And he lived up to that. He never was paroled. He was never going to be pardoned, and that was how it went. But in talking with Alex, there were several things that he shared with me that

he really didn't mean to share with me. They reached the point on a couple of three occasions where I had to say, Alex, I'm not here to interrogate you. I'm just here to talk with you. I'm going to write this book. One way or another, it's going to kill me. And that was at the very outset of this journey of mine, this ten year journey to do it. But I had the distinct pleasure of talking to interviewing family members and really we became such solid friends, police

officers of the day, the community at large. Hey, buddy, do you remember fifty five years ago? Was my lead in approach this county. And one of the reasons I was compelled to do it, couldn't live without doing it, is because I was doing a series of public information articles about county personnel and one of the fire and emergency captains told me, if you don't write we we got to talking about if you don't write that book,

it's going to slip away. This is slipping away. The vast majority of residents in Gwinnette County today know nothing of this story. So it was about and by the way, today I gladly and finally claimed that the Gwinnette County Police Department, whose roots began in those early sixties, is now one of the finest police departments in the world. You can argue with it, but you're not going to

win that with me. But at any rate, it was one of those sad, sad events, but I had and as I mentioned earlier, we are all cried out here, Dan. We just this story. It still stings if you get as close to it as I got, as close to it as those directly conducted to it would allow me to get. And they brought me into their homes and shared their hearts with me because they wanted this story

told as well. But this story was slipping away at It had slipped away right as I got into it because the autopsy reports and the investigative reports that were held in the vault of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation managed after they made me copies of everything they had. The room where those archives were kept was gutted out, and those none of those documents are any longer available. So the timing for me was just the opposes it

was for Officers Everett, grab It and Davis. On that night, I got very, very lucky and it because of that, because the story was just on the verge of being a puff of smoke in history, I felt I had to do something about it. And it was again Robert Hightower passed away about halfway through this book as I

was writing it. And though it was that ten year misery, sleepless nights, many of many a sunrise where I never intended on watching the sun rise from the night pass where I started to write, it was one of those deals where arduous no, I would say, almost death defying these last ten years. And I wouldn't trade it for anything because I met these people. I had a chance to talk with these people, these people, the North Georgia folks that were involved with this story, and it was

the most magnificent journey I've ever taken. But it broke my heart. It still does, and it's very difficult. In fact, the book is out now. Of course it's been out for four months, was released four months ago, and I will talk with the family members they'll call me. I gave them all copies of the book, and they said, Tony, I cannot read it without crying. And once I start crying, I know I'm not going to be able to stop if I keep reading. So I've had to put the

book down. And there are several of the remaining family members of the officers that tell me that. And though it breaks my heart, my intent was not to bring back these memories, I feel a bit of gratitude because, after all, I did what they told me to do. Write the story, all the bullet wounds in all, don't leave anything out, including the language, because that's the way this story unfolded, and it was. It was just incredible what these folks allowed me to do and how they

accepted me, and the sad part lingers on. Because in this journey of ten years that I started forty five years after the crime, I've had to attend several of these folks funerals, and when they have a funeral, somebody will mention, if not several of the old folk here in North Georgia will mention that incident involving those threa and that these folks were ken or relatives still wives, still daughters and laws, still moms, and it would just

tear everybody up in attendance, and those kind of hurt. You just can't wipe those out of your heart. But what is amazing?

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agencies through the book. Arc Road, my publisher, Genius Book Publishing, and I are donating ten percent of all pro seeds from All Things Mattered to Arc Road to the American Police Hall of Fame. Memorial and Museum down in Titusville, Florida.

With that donation, the National Association of Chiefs of Police, who run the museum down there, are able to take ARC Road and travel the country teaching new recruits and recurring training for seasoned officers how to get out of handcuffs, well, how to get a guy back under your control who's

already taken your weapon, things of that nature. So the memories of these officers, in fact, the images of these officers are going on now full throttle as they teach tactics, tactics they were never taught, and as now that the tactics are being taught as a result of Art Road, I cannot express to you or your audience the pride I feel that they where These three officers' memories are going on and they will continue to go on. These families need that, they deserve that, and these three officers

are wonderful people. They live amongst the still into that end the museum in Memorial in Titusville, Florida. They're in the middle of the museum is a rotunda. The rotunda has marble walls. Throughout those walls are inscribed. Into those walls are the names of over nine thousand police officers who died in the line of duty, and those names

are still added, and they're still added. And what those officers on those walls do is they can, literally, if you'll listen, they can talk to today's modern police officer and they can tell them about their experiences, and they ask them questions such as, if given the same set of circumstances that was presented to me on that particular night described as my end of watch, with all your tools, with all your training, with all your skills, would the

outcome be any different for you than it was for us? And those names on those walls still talk a lot of lessons to be learned. I encourage. I've gotten off and I'm not plugging the well. I am plugging the museum. It's a wonderful place in Titusville, Florida, and every family needs to go down there. It's a great learning experience and a real eye opener as well.

the hell out of Wade through it. But that being said, way through it he believed in his innocence as as opposed to Evans and Williams, but especially Evans.

to these police officers. Tell us what happened.

far as from the truth as can be. They did put up a struggle. What happened that night was a lesson for every patrol officer out there to learn, and not just learn, but practice. They let their guard down in several several ways. And again the family said, that's the what happened. You tell it that way. They let

their guard down. Yes, Jerry didn't reload his darringer. Had Jerry reloaded his drringer before they got back into the car, he would have placed it into the side of Alec Evans's ear, pull the trigger, and you and I would not be on the phone right now. That was altogether a different story about just that. But now it starts to add up and those stars in those planets starting to get into the improper lignement. Jerry then, at that scene, did all the things that an untrained officer would do,

but today's trained officer would never do. One of the things he did was he left himself alone in the dirt road when true. It got in his Chevy, which was called the getaway car, and tried to get off of Arc Road going backwards. I spoke about the condition of the road was terrible, so you can see it and picture it and hear it and smell it. Here he is in his sixty two Chevy and Pala convertible trying to evade the police, elude the police by going backwards.

They had come in from the other end of Arc Road, so they were facing him, and they simply followed him into ac Mills driveway. It was the only driveway they could have followed him. But now here's where again everything starts going wrong, mister Gravitt. Officer Davis did not handcuff through it. When they boxed him in to the front of the Mill's house. They saw he was wearing, as were all the culprits that night, a pair of white cotton gloves. Police cars at that time didn't have cages

in the back. Police officers didn't have security straps on their holsters. Police officers just had what they felt was a degree of respect from the community that really didn't exist. So again, their car didn't have their patrol car didn't have a protective cage between the front and the back seat. They didn't handcuff the culprits back then or the suspects.

They just played the game very nonchalantly. And because of that, they returned back up ARC's Hill to where the stolen nosemobile Vincent and Alec Evans were in, and Jerry Everett was there all alone after the other two officers left the scene in pursuit of the one of the bad guys, and he did something that no police officer can afford to do, especially in this day in time. He turned his back to Alex Evans, who was a desperate criminal himself.

He already knew he was going to prison for two years, and now he's been caught by of all things, his old friend, officer Jerry Everett, stealing a car red handed. He did not want to go to prison any long back in those days of stolen card gets you two years in the pen, not a big deal, probably get out in twelve months anyway. So Alex was selfish that night.

He was always self He did not want to go back to prison, so he carried a thirty eight snubby in his waist, and when Jerry Everett turned his back on Alex. Alex stuck that snubby in his back and took his gun, and that was the most horrendous mistake of all. Jerry Everett was the most seasoned cop of the three that night, and Jerry Everett was no pushover. As I explained, he was a blue cat. You mess

you best not want to mess with. Jerry Everett was a good, good cop and he knew how to get himself out of the trouble that he would sell often get himself into. But he turned his back. So now we've got two three major issues. Number one is he didn't load the darringer. Number two, he didn't follow what would have been considered procedure. Now, he let the other two officers go. It was pitch black at night on this hill, and he didn't do anything to protect himself

correct that night. But when he turned his back, Alex Evans stole his gun, picked his gun out, placed it in his back, and told him, don't do anything stupid. The next thing you know is Jerry naturally is going to do an elbow to flying elbow to the back of Evans knocked him down. But in that process, Alex discharged his thirty eight and shot him in the leg and that began the carnage. From that point on. The other officers came back withdrew it after having caught him

down the road. They came back, Jerry and Evans were in the car. Jerry now was having his very own gun pointed at the side of his head by Alex Evans, and also knew that Evans was crazy enough to do something even more felonious than what he'd gotten himself into up until that point. So it was a series of accidents.

But the biggest problem that you've got that night is when Alex held that gun to Jerry Everett's head, he told the other two officers, Ralph Davis and Jesse Grabbittt to hold up to hand over their guns, and they did. I actually had Jerry Everetts's oldest brother, George Everett, who was in law enforcement, and several of his brothers were and he looked at me and he said, Tony, why on earth would you have given your gun up that

night on that dirt road. That's all you had. And that was the moment that turned everything around against the police and against the county. That night, they handed over their guns and as George Everett told me, if the shooting starts, you gotta have a gun to keep it going. And they had given up their guns, those officers. They were frightened that Jerry Everett, the tuffy on that police force, was without his gun and he's in possession of and yet of the bad guy who they knew was holding

it against his head. So they did as he said. And Jerry, I'm sure at that point in time was we're in it now, We're up to our knees in this trouble, and it's only going to get worse, which of course it did. So they made us series of acts of moves that at the time didn't seem like it would be that bad. But you add them all up and you get three County police officers lying face down in the woods.

that would be was he capable? And dan? Before I could get it out of my mouth, everybody, virtually everybody I talked to, We're talking fifth, sixty seventy people I lost track, would say absolutely he was capable. What would motivate him to do that? Well, in a way, selfishness, greed, whatever all those emotions can amount to, he had those that night. He just didn't want anything to come about. Alex thought highly of only one guy, and that was the guy he saw in the mirror every morning he

woke up. He did not want to come up with anything. I think as I look into it, he didn't want his friends, his circle of people to know that he had been arrested for stealing a car. I think he wanted to keep that out of the public domain, the notion that he would because he was arrogant and he had an ego as if he was really something in the county that people looked up to him and admired him, and he didn't want to taint or destroy that image

of himself. Perhaps little did he know, because people like that won't allow it in. But little did he know. His reputation had already soured years ago, and those folks in the county that knew him, and there were a bunch knew that he was capable of doing bad things. They just didn't know he was capable of doing something like this. But if you ask Alan that very same question, he's not going to answer it. He's going to deny it, anything of it, to have anything of it. So you

carry that on for the rest of his life. After fifty three years, he finally passed away in a Georgia State prison, mostly out of his mind, eating up with every disease in the book, Nothing ever good came about Alex. He was a wasted fella all his life. He wasted other people's lives too. But there's no answer to what caused it. It could have been anger, It could have been jealousy, it could have been any number of things

on that dirt road that night. I don't think that Alex understood or realized he was capable of doing that even after he did it. I think that Alex was unaware that he was a murderer until he actually blew Jerry's brains out in the back of that stolen osmobile. I don't think that he gave it any thought. I know for a fact, he didn't give it a whole lot of thought for half a century afterwards, that he

was capable of doing something like that. Yet we had an eyewitness to the crime, and we had other people whose opinions all shared do come up to a certain sum that goes against Alec, that's for sure. But I don't think he could answer that question. I can't answer that question. I hope to God I never will be able to answer a question like that, or have need to.

all along. Evans had him under control, and they handcuffed these three officers right there at the scene where they gave their guns up. They put him in the stolen osemobile and drove over the hill. Alex was still, I think stinging from the fact that Jerry kept mentioning to him, you were going to go to jail for a long time. Brother, And you're doing something like this, you're shackling, or I should say, you're bounding three people together, you're kidnapping them,

you're moving them off site. You've already shot me in my leg. You're going to prison for a long long time. And I think Alex just at the thought of that, kept fuming and kept getting madder and madder and madder,

and then finally he just broke. But yes, Jerry Everett stayed most defiant throughout all of that, and he would have been Jerry Everett was a lawman, and when the law was being broken in front of him and to him, I think you probably would have gotten his ire up more than just about anything you could have done to him.

adding beyond insult to injury. But this is the kind of psychopathic mind that this guy had, that he think he could dupe, fool and fool these police veterans, but meanwhile taunting them basically over the murder of their three comrades.

their faces. I heard family members as I sat in the very spot where Jerry Everett, for instance, lay in his casket, Right in the very spot I had the Everett people tell me Tony, we would look at him and we would all ask, are you sure God in Heaven has made a mistake That couldn't possibly be Jerry because his face was completely black and blue and full of patches of skin gone. He was shot four times in his head, two other places on his body, but four times in the back of his head. After he died,

as were the others. Ralph Davis was shot. He laid on his back in the woods, and he was shot five times in his mouth. The gun was put in his mouth, blew his teeth all over the woods. Jesse Gravitt, in defiance, was shot in his right eye. The barrel of the gun was placed in his right eye and the trigger was pulled. There these three officers wakes lasted for a day and a half at their homes. Not any one of those three their facial identification or how

people would recognize them was recognizable. You couldn't tell what was in that casket. People questioned that all throughout the idea of alex Evans coming to their homes and sitting in the very kitchen tables that I sat in those many years ago, he would come in and say, I'm going to help find who did that to your son. But the irony there was alex Evans, though he was available,

never came to one single funeral at any time. There were lowmn looking for him because their suspicious suspicions were up, small county, small people, but he never showed up to any of their funerals. Yet two weeks later he started making the rounds to their homes, explaining that he was going to solve this crime because there was no one Englinet that could and if they had any leads to give him, he would sure appreciate it. So it was unbelievable.

And I heard family members for the better part of the ten years that I would visit with them, they would point at the very seat he sat in and say he sat right there and looked right in to my damn face and said he was going to investigate and find out who did this to Jerry or Jesse

or Ralph. And that was unbelievable that you would have that kind of goal goes back to your other question, what would motivate what would cause somebody to erupt enough to fire nineteen total shots, sixteen of which found their mark, and then come back two weeks later after the funerals and explain to the families that he was going to investigate.

That crime is beyond belief. It is something that you know, some people can get through life just bumping down the road, and some people go through their lives thinking that everybody else is stupid. And that's what Alec Evans thought. He could schmooz these people over, but every one of them, to a person, told me the day he came in, we knew he was gonna lie. Then he left, we knew he had lied. We were kept asking the police lock him up, he's the guy that did it, but

they couldn't. They had no they had nothing against Alec at the time in order to do that. And in fact, again, if it wasn't for true it, Alec would have walked free.

to put this whole case together. So there was it seemed to me huge support even from the criminal class, that this was beyond the pale. This was not to be tolerated at all in this county.

on earth could have done it? The people that felt it was Evans knew, but the other two they had no idea, and so as a result, folks were frightened. They would give out their own mother if they thought she was capable of doing this kind of thing. It was horrendous, and it's what people woke up to in their hearts in the morning, and it's what they went to bed at night in their fears. They just couldn't get rid of this story, and it was so brutal that actually they tried to sweep it up under the

carpet even after it was said and done. But by that time the damage had been done and the county had been forever affected by these murders.

for two felons. And at the time they were given without any hesitation by the judge or jury. They were given death sentences. They were scheduled to be in the electric chair. But the Federal Supreme Court had different thoughts about capital punishment at the time, so that both their sentences were commuted not just to life, but to life with the possibility of parole. And in fact, Vincent Williams was paroled twenty five years later, and he came out

of the deal with the families in mind. I'm sure. But the gate reporters at the gate asked him, Vincent, tell us about that horrible night twenty five years ago. And he looked at the reporters and he addressed him, and he said, I shall never talk about that night twenty five years ago, but rather thank the Good Lord for any days he sees fit in giving me in the future.

sure he frequently left the house. But Juel Evans was a wonderful, wonderful lady. She was very well admired by several of the folks in the county. Many of the folks in the county. She was a churchgoer as folks were. But after this crime, she was not the same, and her life had been destroyed. And if you look at all of what it is, the jury in that day in Time said we're not here to prosecute her, and the prosecutor said, no, we're not. We're going to We're

not going to throw hardball questions. All we wanted to hear was she didn't know truthfully if he was home all night that night. She supposed he was, and in fact she claimed they slept in the same bed, but when the final question was asked, she said, I don't know Juel Evans Alec Evans's wife, as well as Vincent Williams's wife and family. And the way true its devise was very dramatic himself not long after this, these people's

lives were ruined too. So there were so many people that not just with broken hearts and for the county broken spirits, but for those who were incriminated one way or another. The county was just the foundation, the bedrock of our county was tainted in ways differently to a lot of people, but tainted nonetheless.

pretty hardball things because he remembered this crime. You only need see the headlines, You only need think about the carnage done that day, just indirectly to understand how hard and fast it's going to stick in your mind. This kind of brutality is kind of horror. But mister Conkleton would after he became chief of Gwinnette County Police Department, all new recruits and they certainly train about this incident

and they study this incident. Though many of them, of the today police officers with Gwinnette County have told me it's always dangled out there, but we never knew what happened until Arc Road the book came along. But mister Crouncleton would see to it that their first night on duty after being certified a police officer and after having extensive training, because he brought in the combative training element

aspect of the new recruits in Gwinnett County. He would have them their partners drive them to Arc Road, open the door and say each year, as I'll meet you on the other side. He would do that after midnight on their first shift, and they were to walk that

road again, dark as can be. A flashlight isn't going to be that helpful back in the day, whether the poor condition or the poor quality of flashlights, and the darkness of that road, and he would make them walk that road, and where the three officers' bodies were found lying in the woods, he would have them engraves or inscribed their initials on a big oak tree that was right there at the beginning of the little wagon trail

leading to where the bodies were found. And then they would do that, and then they would walk the other side of Arc Road for over a mile and a half, still in the dark. And I had heard several of them say they don't know if they'd ever been more scared in all their lives than that night they had to walk down Arc Road.

gonna enjoy the read. You're gonna find that this is a horrendous story, but out of it came a rock solid sense of love by this county, given to us as a gift by the families of these three officers in appreciation for the outpouring of grief we showed for those three officers families and still do to this day. Arcroad is a love story, but you are going to enjoy the read, and you can get it on Amazon dot Com. Of course locally here we can get through

Barnes and Noble and certain sites like that. That's your best bet. You can just go to Amazon and grab it and there she'll be.