In the late summer of 1988, a shadow fell over the Vine City neighborhood of Atlanta, a creeping fear that would soon grip the city's elderly residents. This wave of terror began to unfold with the discovery of seventy-eight-year-old Mattie Mae McClendon in her home on September 10th. A female victim, she was found in her bed, the scene deceptively calm at first glance. However, a closer examination by authorities revealed a brutal truth.
An open window with a torn screen hinted at a forced entry, and the subsequent autopsy confirmed the community's worst fears: she had been strangled to death and sexually assaulted. The cause of death was officially determined to be asphyxiation.
The investigation into McClendon's murder soon revealed a horrifying pattern. She was not the first, nor would she be the last. A string of similar home invasions and murders of elderly women in the area pointed to the work of a serial predator. The crimes were marked by their chilling similarities: forced entry through windows, the sexual assault of the victims, and death by strangulation. The perpetrator left behind a trail of forensic evidence, including fingerprints and DNA, that would ultimately lead to his downfall. Investigators meticulously collected evidence from each crime scene, slowly building a profile of the man they were hunting.
The break in the case came when investigators were able to connect the forensic evidence from the various crime scenes to one individual: Lyndon Fitzgerald Pace. His fingerprints were already on file from a previous conviction. With a suspect identified, law enforcement obtained a warrant and arrested Pace, taking samples of his hair and blood for comparison. The DNA evidence was a definitive match to the sperm found on multiple victims, including Mattie Mae McClendon. The probability of a coincidental match in her case was determined to be one in 150 million. This scientific evidence became the cornerstone of the prosecution's case against him.
In a trial that took place from January to March of 1996, Lyndon Fitzgerald Pace was tried for the string of brutal attacks. A grand jury in Fulton County had charged him with four counts of malice murder, four counts of felony murder, four counts of rape, and two counts of aggravated sodomy. The evidence presented by the prosecution was overwhelming. The jury convicted Pace on all counts. Following the guilty verdict, the trial moved to the sentencing phase. After hearing further arguments, the jury recommended a death sentence for each of the four murder convictions, a decision the court upheld. Lyndon Fitzgerald Pace was sentenced to death, bringing a close to the terrifying chapter that had claimed the life of Mattie Mae McClendon and several other innocent women.
