On a warm summer evening in Atlanta, Georgia, on July 11, 1988, the life of 27-year-old Julie Love, a white female preschool fitness teacher, was tragically cut short. Recently engaged, Love was driving her red Mustang convertible in the upscale Buckhead neighborhood when her car ran out of gas. As she began to walk for help, a maroon Cutlass carrying two men and a woman pulled up beside her.
Although she initially waved them on, the occupants of the car, Emanuel Fitzgerald Hammond, his 18-year-old cousin Maurice Porter, and Hammond's girlfriend Janice Weldon, circled back. Hammond, armed with a sawed-off shotgun, forced Love into their vehicle.
What followed was a harrowing ordeal for the young woman. Her abductors drove her to a different location where she was robbed of her bank cards. When they were unable to withdraw money using the PIN she provided, an enraged Hammond beat her with the shotgun. Porter then raped her. The torment continued as they bound her with coat hangers. After an attempt to strangle her failed, Hammond marched her into a wooded area and shot her in the head. He later callously boasted to Weldon and Porter about the execution-style killing. For thirteen months, Love's disappearance remained a highly publicized and perplexing mystery, with her family and friends tirelessly searching for answers.
The break in the case came in August 1989, when Janice Weldon, fearing for her own life after a violent altercation with Hammond, went to the police. She implicated Hammond and Porter in Love's disappearance and murder. To corroborate her story, investigators had Weldon wear a recording device while speaking with Porter, who made incriminating statements. Both men were subsequently arrested. Porter confessed to his involvement and led authorities to a trash dump where they discovered Love's skeletal remains.
In the ensuing legal proceedings, Maurice Porter pleaded guilty to murder and rape and received three life sentences in exchange for his testimony against Hammond. Janice Weldon was granted immunity for her cooperation. In March 1990, a Fulton County jury convicted Emanuel Fitzgerald Hammond of murder, kidnapping, and armed robbery. He was sentenced to death. Over the next two decades, Hammond filed numerous appeals at both the state and federal levels, but his conviction and sentence were consistently upheld. On January 25, 2011, Emanuel Fitzgerald Hammond was executed by lethal injection for the murder of Julie Love.
