Newspaper Page Text
LT RRRSR—
L
L
& 4 3\
K" \
‘ WY j»é A\l
M . ki “
: . SR '
@”' —é ! "“;’ ; 9 e
Josey’s Sherika Wright & ARC’s April Steele
Who is the best point guard? * P.6A
Deejay-slaying suspect linked to
unsolved 1990 torture/homicide
Family of Margaree Bridges
feels doubly victimized at
daughter’s horrible death.
By Frederick Benjamin Sr.
AUGUSTA FOCUS Staff Writer
" AUGUSTA
When Thelma Reid heard that
the man accused of killing Irene
Shields was Garry Deyon Johnson,
it brought back terrible memo
ries. Johnson was the man who
was accused of killing her 26-year
old daughter, Margaree Bridges,
around December 3, 1990. Johnson
was acquitted of the killing, but
Ms. Reid believes he was released
only w kill again.
“The district attorney that let’
this man go back in the street, the
blood is on their hands. This
woman would be alive today if
they hadn’t of done such sneaky
and dirty thing against me and my
family.
“They told me they know that
he wasthe killer, but they couldn’t
do anything. I wanted to know
why they couldn’t do anything,
but they didn’t tell me anything,”
Ms. Reid said this week.
“Ms. Reid’s anguish is two-fold.
It began with the anguish of
knowing that something terrible
had happened to her daughter and
not being able to check on it for
several days because the owner of
the apartment where her daugh
ter lived would not let her into the
apartment to check.
- “I called him [the owner] to see
if I could get in to see if she
(Margaree) was in there, sick or
hurt or something. He said ‘You
people think any time of day or
night you pop your finger, people
are going to come running.” He
said, ‘Tain’t comingnowhere,” and
he slammed the phone down in my
) :
~ |lt’s New!
- Augusta/Aiken
~ Social Notebook
- Nee Page 9A
:,,:......’...................
®National/1nternati0na1............................. 2A
. WLocal/Regional News..........c.cuoerrsrivnnnnn.. 3A
B TEONI 00l uioviansssabsmscam s piish sodbinst i sios I
e . ek
' EQOrial/Opißion .........o.ooorer i 84-5 A
WG s stuiisionios, TORALRNE
TABITEING /oo i stritosssssromussmsisrint T 8
. BChurch News..........osomssinsss 48-5 B
. MClassifieds/Employment ................... 68-TB
The Workplace: Dealing with difficult bosses - raw.. < " .
Opinion: Race - what conservatives don’t want to hear- Page $A
- %ngh&eflopolimn Augusta, South Carolina and the Ceiviral Savannah River Areg
face.”
Ms. Reid is convinced that the
owner of the apartment was try
ing to coverup the fact that her
daughter’s body was in his build
ing. Finally, the owner relented
and with Ms. Reid’s son present,
they opéned the apartment and
called the police.
.“Therewas blood all on the walls
and @l on the bed. Her hair was
stuck to the carpet,” Ms. Reid re
calls. Her daughter’s skull was
crushed, a cord was tied around
her neck and she had been burned
severely on her body as if a hot
comb was used. ,
Margaree had been missing from
Dec. 3 until Dec. 8, 1990.
In the ensuing trial, April 28-30,
Ms. Reid com that her fam
ily was not notified the trial was
underway and when m«: let
them know about it, they were
barred from entering“the court
room.
“They treated us like we had
committed a crime,” Ms. Reid re
called. :
Margaree had moved into an
apartment on Ellis Street indown
town Augusta several months be
fore her death. :
According to Ms. Reid, her
daughter did not know Garry
Johnson very well.
“Noneofusdid. Shedidn’t know
that man,” Ms. Reid recalls.
“I'’haven’t lived a life since then.
It took everything I had to bury
herandto try todo the best I could
for Jamie (Margaree’s daughter).
No human being should have to go
through what I've gone through.”
See FAMILY, page 12A
gt S
A R
b
i ~:%'{,
' ke
! A
it . it ]
: E e
: -
2 B L g@"g:w;.w; »
i e 4
| e |
5 e, T -
!' O i
. k.
R i
e HE &
L W
B 4 f
T T
(% . Y
" R A 1
b ’;"”‘,, e e &i Y A
f . ,"“" e bgo
, . h -
: R B
" 1 O
; ; e ) '
. A 5 ke
9£ . A
o A
)bi " b
v i . 3
] e ook
¢ e ! R ,mrflifq 5 ¢ i
il .
: % o &
: ! gt r 4
h
]
b
¢/ e ?
UG R AR T
z‘
rene Shields ;
Margaree Bridges
Wicked Coincidence? o
On the road where Irene Shields died, a cross stands guard — placed there
by one who may have heard the murder in progress. Margaree Bridges also
died needlessly. A suspect in the murder of Ms. Shields, had been tried and
acquitted for the murder of Ms. Bridges in 1990.
“They told me they know that he was the killer, but
they couldn’t do anything. I wanted to know why
they couldn’t do anything, but they didn’t tell me
anything.” . |
— Thelma Reid, mother of Margaree Bridges.
' ¢
)
-~ y |
|
p )
pm— 3
T. - .
o Pl ;
B T |
o WS ]
el !
‘i'> - 0
AETeR
7 AT T
FOy a Le RO b
Gl gkS e*.
fi“ R et _E 5
BN b At T, e
e " -
e T s St
reve au e Ty B s
i - Phoiu it fif,;@}fich 3 -5 :
RIS AT ! TR
A SR R B R 3
£k o n & B L 0 oe O R
i . %el : | t < Q\. vru N !
- : L L 81 A o
: =¥ AR F o 1 3
L WS g o ey Y 6t
S aAY e IS R %
» = R SRAF g 4 .
; S TRI
Photo and inset by Debby Rivera
Louis
Farrakhan,
left, leader of
the Nation of
Islam, with
Winnie
Madikizela-
Mandela,
right, former
wife of South
African Presi
dent Nelson
Mandela at a
news confer
ence in
Soweto, South
Africa Monday
January 5,
1998,
Farrakhan -
criticized South
Africa s Truth
and Reconcili
ation Commis
sion on Mon
day while :
praising
Winnie
Madikizela-
Mandela, the
focus of o
commission
probe on
human rights
abuses. (AP
Photo/Denis Farrell)
Lb 3 3
He’s going
' }
to kill me!
— Irene Shields, appealed to the
police for help just days before she
was brutally murdered.
By Christy Allen
AUGUSTA FOCUS Staff
Writer
AUGUSTA
Irene Shields died on a
country road to nowhere.
At the spot where she
painfully drew her last
breath — bound, gagged,
and swelling with terror
— a small cross stands
amidst short stacks of
scattered pine needles
resting on the cold, hard
go\md speckled with
»d blood, a grim re
minder of alife that ended
just short of a helping
hand.
Irene cried out desper
ately for help. But if any
one bothered to extend a
hand on her behalf, it was
too little, too late.
Just four days before
her body was discovered
on 801 l Weevil Road in
rural Burke County out
side of Waynesboroon De
cember 27,1997 the Rich
mond County Sheriff’s
Department responded to
a call at her 4125 Pin
nacle Pines Ct. residence
in Hephzibah. The report
filed by the officer at the
scene reads, in part:
“...she asked the primary
aggressor ... to move and
White parents oppose
naming school after MLK
®Fears that school
would be stigmatized
as a black school and
hurt graduate’s
chances for college
education sparks
reaction.
RIVERSIDE, Calif.
(AP) Some white parents are
fighting a plan to name a new high
school after Martin Luther King
Jr., claiming it would be branded as
a black school, hurting graduates’
college chances.
“It’s a very difficult situation,
because we’re all going to come
across as a bunch of racists, which
isreally not true,” said parent Chris
Blasnek. :
The school in this city about 60
miles east of Los Angeles is sched
uled to open in September 1999. I
would be about two-thirds white.
Flyers left on doorsteps recently
urged parents to speak out against
the proposed name when theschool
board votes on the issue Monday.
Some parents say that graduates
of acampus named after King might
be perceived as coming from a pre
dominantly black school, which
they claim could hurt their college
entrance prospects in some states.
... he stated he was not
going anywhere and was
going to kill her and the
children and that no one
would ever be able to pin
it on him and that no one
would ever know.”
The “aggressor” re
ferred to above was
Shield’s boyfriend and
roommate, Garry Deyon
Johnson.
Johnson was arrested
on Monday (January 5)
and charged with the
murder of Irene Shields.
This is Johnson’s second
murder charge. In 1992,
he was acquitted of the
murder of Margaree
Bridges who was discov
ered beaten to death in
her Ellis Street apart
ment in December, 1990.
Johnson was acquitted in
that case duetoinadmiss
able evidence, according
to Burke County Sheriff
Gregg Coursey.
Irene, a loving mother
of three children, ages 7,
9, and 11, worked at the
post exchange at Fort
Gordon and was also a
part-time deejay at Foxie
103, alocal radio station.
Her on-the-air name was
“Nicole Diamond,” later
See MURDERED, 12A
“In some parts
of the country,
(Kingis) not looked
upon as somebody
famous,” said
Mark Van Meter.
“That’s balo
ney,” said Rose
Mayes, founder
and co-chair of the
Riverside Martin
Luther King
Monument Vision
aries Foundation.
“These people
need to get a life.
They need to go to
some cultural sen-
“It's a very
difficult
situation,
because
we're all
going to
come
across as a
bunch of
racists,
which is
really not
true.”
- parent
sitivity training.”
The name was defended by Lew
Vanderzyl, president of the River
side Unified School District and a
member of the committee that pro
posed the name.
“Whether he was black, white,
green or red, the things for which
he worked so hard are things that
all Americans can stand to con
sider,” Vanderzyl said Friday.
In 1996, a similar controversy
aroseinnearby Corona-Norcowhen
an elementary school was named
for the late farm labor leader Cesar
Chavez. Opponents noted that he
led boycotts against local citrus
growers.
X
OSTAGE
AID
12/1/84 302
rvavoTA, GA