Troubled Life In Georgia : Jeffrey Hazelwood
Jeffrey Hazelwood was bullied all of his young life by his peers, his parents, other family members, basically by anyone given the chance. Jeffrey also was forced to endure abuse, both mental and physical, at the hands of his mother and other family members. From what I’ve gathered, the adults in Jeffrey’s life really let him down from a very young age, with the exception of his grandparents. They never truly understood the extent of Jeffrey’s mental health and just how dangerous he had become. Jeffrey suffered most of his life with various mental and learning disabilities; however, his parents never intervened and got him tested and that means he never got treated. Instead, when Jeffrey started having issues in school and trouble sleeping when he would hear voices that assumed it was just him misbehaving and punished him. But punishment for Jeffrey was horrible. Sources have said they witnessed beatings and terrible name calling all at the hands of his mother. She has admitted several times as to using drugs while pregnant with Jeffrey and long term drug use before and after pregnancy.
Eventually Jeffrey left his mother’s home and was placed with his grandparents in Roswell, Georgia. They wasted no time getting him psychological and medical testing and treatments that he had been needing for years, but was it a little too late? Jeffrey eventually began a regimen of treatments, including medication intervention for his new diagnosis of schizophrenia with extreme paranoia, PTSD, and some learning disabilities. The doctors his grandparents took him to did warn them with the long term abuse and neglect, including medical neglect, it would most likely be a long road with many long term effects.
Murdering Natalie Henderson and Carter Davis was not o.k. in anyway, by no means. It was not ok to cause the pain and hurt Jeffrey caused within those two families, or his. His grandparents were devastated that he could knowingly take two people’s lives, teenagers. It was a terrible and pure evil act that Jeffrey committed in the early morning hours of August 1, 2016 behind a Roswell, Ga. Publix Supermarket. Before the murders, Jeffrey Hazelwood was already well known to Roswell Police. Most encounters Roswell police had with Jeffrey were criminal. Roswell Police Department and Fulton County had visited Jeffrey’s grandparent’s home several times prior to the murders. In a report from 2013, Jeffrey’s grandparents told police their grandson had stolen knives and a sword from a gun case in the family’s home. Jeffrey was barely 16 years old then. His grandmother stated Jeffrey told her “ I am going to blow and people are going to get hurt”. There was a report written “ in case” Jeffrey acted on his threat. No intervention was done from police or family after this incident. His grandfather has called before and identified Jeffrey as being the person who stole a rifle from a gun case in the family’s home in February 2015. Even after these incidents and many more threats throughout the years, Jeffrey Hazelwood’s grandparents continued to let him keep and collect knives in their home.
It is unknown how or if Jeffrey knew his victims, Natalie and Carter. Throughout my personal research and investigation, I didn’t find any evidence that he ever even crossed paths with Natalie or Carter. Jeffrey had a reputation at a couple schools for using and selling drugs. I even asked around at that angle and again there’s no evidence neither Natalie nor Carter used any type of drugs or spent time with kids that did.
The early morning hours of August 1,2016, Jeffrey told police he had been visiting with his girlfriend that evening. He gave description into what they did and they had dinner. Jeffrey also admitted he had stopped all his medications 3 weeks prior. He left his girl’s house and began walking home, he said he came into contact with Natalie and Carter, but evidence showed he was hiding at Publix watching them. He did admit though, he shot them both.
August 3, 2016, Jeffrey was officially interrogated by Roswell Police Department for the 2nd time. It had been 2 days since Jeffrey Hazelwood admitted to shooting Natalie Henderson and Carter Davis. This interview turned out to be 4 hours long, and Jeffrey clearly was still in psychosis, even talking to people that clearly were not in the room. He was saying things like “ my marriage is falling apart”, and no Jeffrey was not married, nor had he ever been.
Natalie had shown signs she was sexually abused, but Jeffrey never admitted to anything of that nature. In the end he was convicted of that plus 2 counts of murder. Jeffrey Hazelwood was sentenced to life without parole.
