Carl Millard Patton Jr. was 53 and living in Locust Grove, Georgia, when he was arrested in February 2003 for a killing that had gone unsolved for a quarter of a century. Within three months he had admitted five deaths: one in Henry County in March 1973 and four in 1977 in Clayton and DeKalb counties. He pleaded guilty in the courts of those counties and was given a life sentence in each. The last of them was imposed in Henry County on May 14, 2003.
The case was reopened because evidence kept by police since 1977 was tested again in late 2002 and tied to Liddie Matthews Evans. A witness given immunity in three counties testified against him.
Richard Russell Jackson was the first. He died in Henry County on March 9, 1973, near Ellenwood, and Patton admitted this killing only in the spring of 2003, after the four 1977 cases had been resolved.
The four killings of 1977 came within weeks of one another. Fred Wyatt, Patton's uncle, died in Clayton County on November 12, 1977. His death was first treated as an accident and was later regarded as a homicide. Betty Jo Ephlin, who was Wyatt's girlfriend, died in Clayton County in the autumn of 1977.
Joe Cleveland and Liddie Matthews Evans died in December 1977, in DeKalb County, about a month after the Clayton County deaths. Cleveland was a childhood friend of Patton. Evans, 31, was Cleveland's girlfriend and lived in Jonesboro.
Patton was jailed in Fayette County on December 22, 1977, after the deaths of Evans and Cleveland. He was released in early January 1978. Years later the judge who had been the district attorney at that time, Johnnie L. Caldwell Jr., said the evidence then had not been enough to proceed.
An investigator, Bruce Jordan, first came across the file in 1997 while he was researching a book. The Fayette County sheriff, Randall Johnson, authorized the case to be reopened in 2002. In late 2002 laboratory work by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation linked evidence held since 1977 to Evans.
Patton was arrested in Locust Grove in February 2003. Fayette County State Court Judge Fletcher Sams heard his first appearance. Murder charges that Fayette County had brought were dismissed by the same judge because the deaths of Evans and Cleveland had taken place in DeKalb County, and the District Attorney there, Bill McBroom, already held warrants for his arrest.
Patton pleaded guilty in Clayton County in early March 2003 to the murders of Fred Wyatt and Betty Jo Ephlin. By March 12, 2003, he was expected to plead guilty in DeKalb County Superior Court, on the Friday of that week, to the murder of Liddie Matthews Evans.
By April 6, 2003 he had pleaded guilty to four killings: those of Evans, Cleveland and the two in Clayton County. A fifth charge was then pending in Henry County.
Patton confessed to the Henry County killing of Richard Russell Jackson. The Henry County District Attorney, Tommy Floyd, who had been a deputy at the first scene in 1973, led the prosecution. Floyd said his office had considered seeking the death penalty, since Patton might not outlive the appeals process, which usually took about fifteen years.
Henry County Superior Court Judge Arch McGarity imposed the last of the sentences on May 14, 2003. Over the three counties Patton received identical life sentences.
In 2024 Patton was listed as an inmate of a Georgia state prison.
The deaths occurred in adjoining counties south of Atlanta. Fayette County's murder charges against Patton were dismissed because the deaths of Evans and Cleveland had taken place in DeKalb County, and separate pleas followed in Clayton, DeKalb and Henry counties. The sentences were imposed county by county between March and May 2003.
No court finding sets out a motive for the killings, and Patton's admissions in 2003 were the basis of each county's case.
March 9, 1973: Richard Russell Jackson dies in Henry County.
Autumn 1977: Betty Jo Ephlin dies in Clayton County.
November 12, 1977: Fred Wyatt dies in Clayton County.
December 1977: Joe Cleveland and Liddie Matthews Evans die in DeKalb County.
December 22, 1977: Patton is jailed in Fayette County; released in early January 1978.
1997: An investigator first comes across the file.
2002: The case is reopened; late in the year laboratory results tie evidence to Evans.
February 2003: Patton is arrested in Locust Grove.
March 2003: Pleas in Clayton County; DeKalb County plea expected.
May 14, 2003: Life sentence in Henry County.