Hello all, I've been lurking for a while but finally decided to make an account to contribute what little I know and it took a while to get approved. Facebook has been hostile towards any question askers or truth seekers on the local news pages. The general consensus is, we should just accept that the kids were killed, but not give any details or ask why because it's "disrespectful." So obviously what I'm about to say will not go over well there. And it's long so I apologize if it's too much.
I live within a few miles of the store and drive through there frequently. I've shopped at the Publix, the little chocolate shop in the corner and ate at Rojo (all in the same shopping center.) So this case grabbed my attention from the beginning and I've been following closely.
I have heard some things through the grapevine that can't be confirmed but I'm trying to rectify with what I've heard so far with the media and what was presented in the hearing. The first question everyone wanted to know was, what were they doing back there. After the hearing we know they were making out and Jeff followed them, so it wasn't drug related as was first assumed. But now the big question becomes - how did Jeff end up following them?
What has been insinuated so far is that it was a random, terrible coincidence that these kids happened to be in the same parking lot as a psycho, who arrived at the same minute. But that's still not making much sense. What are the odds? That's a really, really big coincidence. I was listening to the hearing and - it was long so I only listened twice - but I believe Detective Bennett said that Jeff was there one minute before the victims. Then later I believe she said the victims were there one minute before Jeff. This is confusing because it's not clear who showed up first. But it is accepted that both parties showed up at just about the same time, within a minute of each other.
This is just too weird to be random. I was discussing with my SO, who has an acquaintance with high schoolers. All the high schoolers in this area seem to know the victims, even if they're at different schools. What his acquaintance said is that the friends of the victims said that night "they were all at the Waffle House." Something went off in my head and I remembered the detective saying that Jeff had been at the Waffle House. Also, Jeff's friend
said that Jeff was always hanging out at the Waffle House.
I believe the Waffle House in question is the one on 4875 Highway 92. This Waffle House is three miles from the Publix. It is roughly halfway between where Carter and Natalie each lived. It is also in the area known to have been traversed by Jeff. This Waffle House is directly on the path between the Publix and the Flash Foods (12155 Highway 92), where Jeff used Natalie's card. All three stores are on the same road, seven miles apart.
Our theory is that (speculation alert) Jeff first came across Natalie and Carter at that Waffle House, where they were with some other high schoolers. There were commenters on Facebook saying that Carter had gotten back that night from a trip (I believe some kind of lacrosse camp.) Maybe the group at Waffle House was some of his lacrosse buddies and he texted Natalie to come meet him. This could be the app police mentioned in the very beginning. Maybe the app wasn't used between Jeff and victims but between the victims themselves to meet up at the Waffle House.
We know that it was early on August 1, and Jeff had just been kicked out of his grandparent's house. August 1 was the deadline they wanted him out. He was homeless and Waffle House is open 24 hours. I can only speculate what was going through his mind, but it was probably despair and anger. He sees some happy high schoolers and some kind of rage boils up and he follows them when they went to the Publix. The victims didn't know they were being followed.
None of this has been mentioned by the police but I'm hoping they got the Waffle House surveillance as that would answer a whole lot of questions.
The other thing I heard is through a friend of a friend who knows a Roswell cop, so obviously I can't verify this. I'm going to be really careful with details in case this isn't true. What I heard is that Natalie's body was in worse condition than what was revealed at the hearing. We'll just have to wait and see if that's true or not.
I also have a dashcam
video of the back of the store, for anyone who doesn't live there and is trying to picture what the area looks like. The date was wrong but this was 8:30-ish AM on August 3. I decided to drive back there that morning because I really wanted to see for myself if there was anything of interest. At the time we didn't know they had just caught Jeff that morning, so we thought he was still on the loose.
When I pulled into the front of the Publix, there was a cordoned off section with orange fencing. At first I thought this was just the press pool holding area, but after the hearing I realized that Jeff had been parked in the front of the store, so that area might have been where Jeff parked. I don't know.
The weird part is there was nothing in the rear of the store. No markers, no police tape, no flowers, it was like nothing had happened. What is even weirder is they had been paving the whole parking lot! This was just two days after the murders. I thought maybe there was some damage to the concrete from the murders, but I don't know why they would do the whole lot, so it must have been a coincidence. But because of the paving, I could not drive all the way around the whole store. There was a truck blocking the way.
Originally, according to one news report, I thought the spot they were killed was right as you are pulling into the rear lot at the No Parking sign on the left, near the loading dock. But according to another poster, the murder spot was farther back, as you turn the corner of the L shaped store. You can see a little of it in my video but the paving truck was blocking just beyond that and I turned around.
You can also see several spots where Jeff might have been able to access the roof. The spot that looks closest to the roof is just past the loading dock where there's a large silver box that is next to a short roof over the loading dock, that's just a couple of feet from the roof. He also could have climbed up on the fenced in box behind the corner, but I believe that would have been in view of the victims so I think he accessed the roof near the loading dock. There's also several silver "poles" along the building, but does anyone think it's possible to "shimmy" those like the detective said? I don't know.
I'm wondering how the delivery driver saw the victims. The delivery driver would have had to drive completely around the whole building, instead of out the closer entrance drive, to see the victims. If it was a big truck on the loading dock, is there enough room to do a U-turn? It could have been a smaller delivery truck and he came around the opposite side of the building from where I drove in, and that way he would drive right past the bodies. But it's a lot farther away from the loading dock to go that way, so I am confused how they were discovered. That's why I assumed the bodies were found near the No Parking signs next to the woods, because you can see that from the loading dock. But that's a lot smaller detail than everything else.
Back to the app, the detective twice mentioned Jeff using Snapchat and them researching his usage. I'm still trying to figure out how that fits into what happened, if the victims chatted with Jeff or what? There's a feature on Snapchat where you can find someone nearby (in the same room.) So if he was at the Waffle House with them, that's a possibility. I don't know if there was any link though, other than he just randomly saw them there and stalked them to the Publix.
Lastly, this doesn't have to do with any clues but my SO thinks he saw Jeff at Michael's three weeks before the murders when we were buying picture frames. It's just creepy to think about crossing paths with him. I was there with SO at the store and we both remember a skinny guy with long hair. But I can't for the life of me remember his face but my SO is adamant it was Jeff. This could have happened to anyone in the area. Those kids just crossed paths with the wrong guy at the wrong time. A guy who wanted to be an "assassin." Well that's all I have for now.