In the quiet enclave of Campbellton, Georgia, homicide detectives faced a shocking case on November 26, 2005.

Candiace Person, 53, was found strangled and wrapped in a blanket in her home. Her daughter, Tisha Person, made the discovery and called 911, according to Real Murders of Atlanta on Oxygen.

“We noticed that there was some hemorrhaging in her eyes, which is consistent with strangulation,” said Anthony Gentile, former homicide detective with the Atlanta Police Department.

Candiace Person killed in her home

Person was naked from the waist down, which suggested a sexual attack, detectives said. The contents of her purse were on the floor. Credit cards were missing, as was Person’s car. An APB was issued on the vehicle.

A crime scene unit found that the home had been wiped clean of fingerprints. The phone line had been ripped out. It appeared that the killer entered through a back door, where a window was broken.

Detectives canvassed the victim’s neighborhood in search of leads. Neighbors hadn’t noticed anything unusual. The killer likely “entered under the cover of darkness,” said former Atlanta Police Department Homicide Detective Nicole Esquilin.

Investigators learned that Person was independent and had a custodial job in the local school system, according to Lawanda Hodges, a former Fulton County assistant D.A. She was a devout churchgoer and devoted mother.

Autopsy confirms Candiace Person was strangled and raped

While the victim’s loved ones grappled with their grief, the autopsy report came in. Person died by asphyxiation. The medical examiner confirmed that she had been sexually assaulted.

DNA evidence was collected and sent to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) for processing. In the meantime, detectives questioned Person’s inner circle about the men in her life.

Family friends reported that Person wasn’t dating anyone. She was focused on work and her church.

Investigators began by questioning Person’s ex-husband, a typical start in a homicide case. Investigators determined the couple’s divorce had been amicable and ruled out the ex-spouse via a DNA sample. Law enforcement was back to square one.

Two days into the case, Person’s car was located five miles away at a rapid transit station. It was methodically processed by the GBI. Yet, just like at the crime scene, the vehicle yielded no useful evidence. Investigators hoped that the suspect had been caught on surveillance cameras, but he was parked so far away, the grainy image was useless.

Detectives were concerned that the case could go cold, according to Hodges.

On December 1, police believe they caught a break when a man was picked up for attempting to break into a home not far from Person’s residence.

Detectives learned that he’d targeted a number of older women. The suspect agreed to give a DNA swab, which ended up clearing him in the Person case.

Just over a week into the investigation, police had no suspects. Anxiety grew in the community as the media picked up on the case and dubbed the killer the “Southside Strangler.”  

Willie Lee Bryant becomes a suspect

Detectives eventually caught a break when Person’s daughter alerted them that she’d gotten a letter from a bank indicating that someone tried to use her mother’s credit card at a gas station shortly after the murder.

“Fortunately in this case, we hit the jackpot and were able to recover video,” said Esquilin. Police shared the image of the suspect with the media, and tips came in.

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One witness, Nicole Andrews, told police that the man in the picture was her ex-boyfriend Willie Lee Bryant. She tried to end their relationship and got a restraining order because it was “toxic and very abusive.”

“He just kept repeating ‘If I can’t have you, nobody else will,’” Andrews told producers. “He decided he was going to rape me. He did monstrous things.”

Following the attack in which he choked her, he dumped out her pocketbook and stole her credit card, she said. He threw her phone against a wall to disable it.

The events echoed what occurred at the Person crime scene. Those events had never been released publicly.

At that point, Andrews revealed that she was a friend of Person’s daughter Tisha. Detectives were shocked when she said that Tisha dated Bryant after her.

Willie Lee Bryant’s link to Candiace Person found

The fact that Bryant began to date Tisha was the first real big connection to tie Person’s killer to him, according to Esquilin. “Cutting phone lines and raping somebody is the ultimate control for a person like Willie,” she said.

But when detectives interviewed Person’s daughter, she painted a different picture of Bryant. She didn’t believe he was capable of violence. She said that her mother treated him like he was part family, according to Gentile.

Tisha acknowledged that Bryant had a bad side. He stole $500 from her. That was a deal-breaker. She ended their relationship.

Investigators believed that with Bryant’s temper, the incident with Tisha may have motivated him to kill.

Police moved ahead and got an arrest warrant for Bryant. He was brought in for questioning and reluctantly agreed to provide a DNA sample.

As Bryant turned over the sample, he alleged that he and Candiace Person had a consensual intimate relationship.

“He stated that about a week before she was found dead she came down to the hotel he was staying at,” said Esquilin. “They had sexual intercourse.”

Investigators didn’t buy that and believed he “on the fly” made it up to cast doubt on the case. While police believe “they have their man,” said former journalist Linda Looney, they hit a hurdle.

Killer Attempts to Use Candiace Person’s Credit Card

When the DNA results came back, Bryant’s DNA was only a partial match. “It was like hitting a huge brick wall going like 90 miles an hour,” said Esquilin.

Willie Lee Bryant charged with rape and murder

Bryant was charged with Person’s murder. Andrews was a key witness during the trial, testifying to the violence Bryant put her through.

On February 15, 2010, Bryant was found guilty of felony murder and rape. He was sentenced to life plus 20 years behind bars.

To learn more about the case, watch Real Murders of Atlanta on Oxygen.

On January 17, 1997, the Silent Movie Theatre in Los Angeles was celebrating its sixth anniversary when the festive vibe was shattered by gunshots.

Detectives found that the establishment’s owner, Lawrence Austin, 74, had been fatally shot. Mary Giles, 19, a concessions clerk, was also shot but was alive. She was rushed to the hospital.

Austin had “three distinct bullet wounds, including one in the head,” Los Angeles Police Department Detective John Miller told Real Murders of Los Angeles, debuting October 6 at 9/8c on Oxygen.

Robbery-Gone-Wrong Initially Suspected

A bag of blood-spattered cash, about $500, was near Austin’s body. “We were open to the possibility that it was a robbery gone bad,” said LAPD Detective Alan Hamilton.

The gunman ran through the crowded theater and out the back alley, according to witnesses. “It’s almost as though this individual wanted to be seen,” added Hamilton.

As a crime scene team processed the theater, projectionist James Van Sickle offered his assistance. Investigators learned that the theater had been founded in the 1940s and was the only one in the U.S. devoted solely to silent films.

The business had shuttered for a number of years. In 1991, Austin, who’d fallen in love with the theater as a kid in high school, took it over. “He just breathed new life into it,” said Los Angeles crime historian Joan Renner.

Austin was “the high priest of silent cinema,” his friend Chris Perkins told Real Murders of Los Angeles.

Shooting Survivor Recalls the Gunman

On January 18, detectives hoped to interview Giles, who may have been the only person to see the shooter. Lucky for her and the case, the bullet entered her chest and went to her shoulder without hitting vital organs.

Giles recalled that a guy came in and asked to speak with the manager. When Austin stepped forward, the perpetrator pulled a gun and demanded cash. Austin immediately obliged but was shot anyway. Then Giles was shot.

Giles had a clear recollection of what this individual looked like, said Hamilton. She didn’t recognize him, and he was Hispanic.

Detectives were puzzled as to why the gunman opened fire when he was given no resistance. Was it really a robbery? Or a targeted attack?  

On January 20, detectives spoke with Austin’s nephew. He reiterated that the theater enabled “him to be part of the legacy of Hollywood,” said Miller.

Like the movies, parts of Austin’s life turned out to be make-believe. “Larry often told people that his dad and his uncle were silent film actors and his mother was a seamstress for the great director Cecil B. DeMille,” said Renner. “None of that was true.”

Had Austin crossed someone with his lies? Detectives dug deeper. “We determined that he actually served time for embezzlement at a company that he worked at years prior to his ownership of the theater,” said Hamilton.

Had Austin embezzled money to cover the costs of his beloved business? Investigators considered the possibility.

At the same time, the case caught the attention of America’s Most Wanted. The show interviewed detectives as well as Van Sickle.

The true-crime show also provided a sketch artist to create a drawing of the shooter. The picture was released to the media, while the LAPD offered a $25,000 reward.

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Suspicion Falls on Business Partner James Van Sickle

Investigators scrutinized Austin’s business accounts. “The first thing we did was get search warrants on Larry Austin’s accounts to see what was happening,” said LAPD Detective Dave Harned, who worked in the financial crimes division in 1997.

Silent Movie Theatre assets, including cash, property and original prints and films, were worth about $3.5 million.

As they learned this, investigators also saw that money was being diverted from one of Austin’s accounts. They had the bank put a freeze on it. It turned out that Van Sickle’s name was also on the account.

Van Sickle, then 34, said that he and Austin were business partners, a fact he hadn’t shared earlier. He maintained that the theater was still open and he needed money to run it. He also had Austin’s upcoming memorial to pay for, said detectives.

Van Sickle revealed that he and Austin had been lovers. “Austin was not openly gay,” said Miller. When their romantic relationship ended, the men became business partners.

In February 1997, investigators got a tip from an informant who said that 19-year-old Christian Rodriguez admitted to the theater shootings. He had a rap sheet but no violent crimes. So what was his motive?

James Van Sickle Tied to Alleged Gunman Christian Rodriguez

Detectives discovered that Rodriguez and Van Sickle had worked together, and raced to track down Rodriguez.

At the same time, they found that Van Sickle “had a sordid criminal past,” Hamilton said. He served time for selling drugs and was booked for attempted murder. The attempted murder charge was dropped when the victim failed to show up in court.

Van Sickle’s actions had a pattern, according to Hamilton. “He would establish a relationship with an older male and these relationships typically ended… with a violent encounter,” he said.

To protect their privacy, the victims may have decided not to press charges. “This is how Van Sickle could victimize people in their own community and get away with it,” said Renner.

Investigators considered that Van Sickle had his eye on Austin’s $3.5 million. They believed he hired Rodriguez, who was young and cash-strapped, to be his trigger man.

James Van Sickle’s Confession is Caught on Tape 

Authorities needed a confession from Van Sickle to tie him to the crime. Detectives caught a break from a confidential informant who’d seen Van Sickle on America’s Most Wanted. He claimed Van Sickle approached him months earlier about killing Austin.

At the time, the informant gave the proposition a hard pass. But now he was ready to turn on Van Sickle for the reward money, according to detectives.

Investigators recruited the informant to get Van Sickle’s taped confession. Working with detectives, the source called Van Sickle and said he read about the murder and wanted $10,000. Otherwise, he’d go to the police.

Detectives had unfrozen Van Sickle’s account. The suspect went to the bank and withdrew $10,000, and then met with the informant at an underground garage. Van Sickle was being tailed by police the whole time. He was recorded admitting that he hired a hitman to kill Austin and Giles.

James Van Sickle and Christian Rodriguez are Arrested

In March 1997, Van Sickle was arrested and charged with the first-degree murder of Austin. A day later, Rodriguez was taken into custody. Rodriguez told police Van Sickle hired him because he had no record and no one would suspect him.

Rodriguez was to be paid $25,000. In a chilling admission, he said he’d get an extra $5,000 for shooting Giles to make it look like a robbery.

Giles gave key testimony at the trial. In May 1999, Van Sickle and Rodriguez were convicted and sentenced to life without parole. The pair were also convicted of the attempted murder of Giles, in addition to attempted robbery and commercial burglary. 

To learn more about the case, watch Real Murders of Los Angeles, debuting October 6 at 9/8c on Oxygen.

The man charged this week in 9-year-old Charlotte Sena‘s abduction is facing possible police scrutiny in the unsolved homicide investigations of two New York teenagers. 

Craig N. Ross Jr., 47, who is accused in Charlotte’s campground kidnapping last weekend from upstate New York, could be a potential person of interest in the separate killings of a pair of teen girls who disappeared in 2003 and 2005, according to Albany newspaper the Times Union. 

Jennifer “Moonbeam” Hammond, 18, and Christina N. White, 19, both vanished from Saratoga County mobile parks in Milton in close proximity to one another and near where Ross and his family have lived for years, the newspaper reported. 

Hammond, who was originally from Colorado but was working as a magazine salesperson in the Albany area, vanished in 2003. Her skull was later discovered in a wooded area in the town of Greenfield, New York. White disappeared in June 2005. Her partial skeletal remains were discovered a year later, also in Greenfield, roughly eight miles from her family home. She’d been fatally stabbed.

No one has been charged in either murder.

This week, Saratoga County investigators refused to confirm or deny a possible link to Ross in either investigation. But officials investigating the Hammond and White cases have previously suggested the two killings could have been carried out by the same person, largely due to the proximity of the crime scenes for both victims.  

“At this time, we have no information to indicate that he was or was not involved,” Saratoga County Sheriff’s Investigator Matthew Robinson said in a statement, according to the Times Union. “I can tell you that one of the investigative steps that we will take with regards to the ongoing investigation around Mr. Ross will be any association he has with any major case in the area. And that is something that we are actively working on. But at this time, we have no information to indicate that he is involved in any of those (two) cases.”

Oxygen has reached out to the Saratoga County Sheriff’s Office for further information. 

Charlotte vanished while riding her bicycle during a camping trip at Moreau Lake State Park in upstate New York on September 30. The 9-year-old girl was later found “safe and in good health,” authorities said, after fingerprints on a ransom note left in her family’s mailbox linked Ross to the kidnapping. 

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According to state officials, Ross’ name had been in a database stemming from a 1999 intoxicated driving case. Ross was later arrested by SWAT teams in a camper. Investigators found Charlotte in a cabinet inside the RV trailer. 

Hundreds of people, including forest rangers, police officers and firefighters, had scoured more than 46 miles of territory in the aftermath of the child’s disappearance, which made national headlines. An Amber Alert was also issued and Moreau Lake State Park was closed while officials searched for Charlotte.  

“We just want her returned safely like any parent would,” Charlotte’s family said in a statement on Monday prior to her rescue. “No tip is too small, please call if you know anything at all.”

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul later commended state authorities’ quick police work in recovering the abducted child.

“What happened was extraordinary,” Hochul said.

Ross was arraigned on Monday on first-degree kidnapping charges in connection with Charlotte’s alleged abduction, according to the New York Post. Further charges are expected, law enforcement officials said.

Ross was also previously charged with choking somebody during a domestic dispute more than six years ago, police records show.

On April 21, 2017, Ross was taken into police custody after he allegedly strangled an unidentified victim amid a “physical domestic dispute,” NBC News reported, citing arrest records. Authorities at the time said Ross “applied pressure on the throat of the victim during the altercation.”

He was ultimately charged with misdemeanor criminal obstruction of breathing or blood circulation.

A 25-year-old homeless man was charged Thursday in the rape and killing of a 5-year-old Kansas girl who died despite firefighters’ efforts to save her life in a gas station parking lot.

Mickel Cherry faces one count of capital murder — which would allow prosecutors to seek the death penalty — and one count each of first-degree murder and rape in the death of Zoey Felix on Monday. He was jailed in Topeka on a $2 million bond, and his next court appearance has not yet been determined.

Shawnee County District Attorney Michael Kagay told reporters that a decision about seeking a death sentence won’t be made until after a preliminary hearing to determine whether Cherry stands trial. That is standard in capital cases.

Mark Manna, of the Kansas Death Penalty Defense Unit, said his office would represent Cherry, but that he had no further comment. Cherry’s family didn’t respond to messages.

Authorities have released no details about the cause of Zoey’s death, but former neighbors of the girl and her family believe she, her father and Cherry had lived the past few weeks in a grove of trees on a wooded lot near the gas station, just blocks from the home where her mother lived. They believed she was carried from the wooded lot to the gas station, but police have not confirmed any of those details.

Kagay said in a news release that Topeka police rushed to a gas station where fire crews were attempting to save Zoey’s life. She was later pronounced dead. A medical examination at the hospital revealed injuries consistent with sexual assault.

“I think the investigation into the murder and rape of this 5-year-old girl is fairly complete,” Kagay told reporters during a brief news conference.

Asked about potentially charging other people, Kagay said, “I’m willing to consider any actionable investigations brought to me,” but when he was asked whether he is aware of any other investigations, he said, “I’m not.”

Timothy Phelps, deputy director of the Shawnee County Department of Corrections, confirmed that Cherry used to live at the same address as Zoey, but at the time of his arrest, Cherry was homeless.

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Cherry has no criminal record in Kansas, but he does have a misdemeanor criminal trespass conviction in Amarillo, Texas.

Neighbors said they had raised concerns that Zoey’s family home had no electricity and that they called the police and child welfare.

“She just had a good spirit to her. Honestly, very outgoing, smart. She was curious about everything. She’d ask you a 1,001 questions, and she demanded answers for those too,” said Shaniqua Bradley, a neighbor.

Topeka police confirmed Thursday that they made three visits to the home in September: one on Sept. 5 for a welfare check following a report that the home had no electricity; and two domestic disturbance calls in the afternoon and evening of Sept. 19, a little more than an hour apart. Police did not provide details about those two calls.

City spokeswoman Gretchen Spiker said in an email that during the first call officers confirmed there was no electricity and that they were told the child wasn’t staying there. Police met with the child, saw she was in “good spirits” but still made a report to child welfare and property officials, Spiker said.

The city moved to condemn the house but backed off when the utilities were turned back on. Neighbors said that everyone but the mother had moved out by then.

One tent and a tarp were set up in the woods a few blocks away from the home, in an area about a football field away from the pumps at a Dillons grocery store where fire crews tried to resuscitate Zoey.

Her dad worked at the gas station; a coworker said Wednesday that he was taking time off and the company hasn’t responded to an email from The Associated Press.

A makeshift memorial of flowers, balloons and toys sat nearby.