On the evening of July 9, 1987, Jerri Ann Jones, a 19-year-old female, was finishing her shift as a cashier at a Harris Teeter grocery store in the Derita neighborhood of Charlotte, North Carolina. She was last seen at about 8:30 p.m. in the parking lot on Graham Street, waiting for her boyfriend to pick her up. When he arrived, she was gone. Her sudden disappearance launched a frantic search and a painful mystery that would haunt her family and the community for years.
The following
day, the search for Jerri came to a devastating end. Her body was discovered in a wooded area off Mineral Springs Road. She was found naked, and her throat had been slit. The brutal nature of the crime shocked Charlotte, and investigators immediately began the difficult work of finding her killer. Police Captain Larry Snider suggested she had been kidnapped from the parking lot. In the days that followed, her employer, Harris Teeter, offered a $10,000 reward for information, which was supplemented by another $1,000 from Crime Stoppers, but the case yielded few immediate leads.
Investigators noted similarities to another recent crime in the area where a 24-year-old woman was raped. In both instances, witnesses reported seeing a white male in a white pickup truck. This connection brought a flood of tips to the police, but none led to an arrest. For years, Jerri's case grew cold, leaving her loved ones without answers and her killer free. The investigation stalled, and it would take a breakthrough in forensic technology nearly two decades later to finally shed light on what happened that summer night.
The path to justice for Jerri Ann Jones was ultimately paved by the crimes of a man already behind bars. Terry Alvin Hyatt, born in Asheville, North Carolina, was a serial killer responsible for at least two other murders in 1979. In 1998, a guilt-ridden accomplice came forward, leading to Hyatt's arrest for the murders of Harriet Simmons and Betty McConnell. During that investigation, Hyatt gave a voluntary blood sample. He was convicted in February 2000 and received two death sentences, in addition to six consecutive life sentences for a litany of charges including first-degree murder, rape, and kidnapping.
While Hyatt sat on death row, the Charlotte police department established a Cold Case Squad in 2003. Investigators resubmitted evidence from Jerri's murder scene to the national DNA database (CODIS). The evidence included a crucial cigarette butt found next to her body and semen recovered from her mouth. In January 2005, the database returned a perfect match: the DNA belonged to Terry Alvin Hyatt. The forensic link was undeniable, finally connecting him to the cold-blooded murder that had remained unsolved for 18 years.
Faced with the irrefutable DNA evidence, and to avoid a third trial that could result in another death penalty, Terry Hyatt accepted a plea deal. On August 2, 2005, he pleaded guilty to the first-degree murder of Jerri Ann Jones. He was given another life sentence to be served consecutively with his existing sentences. Today, Hyatt remains incarcerated at Central Prison in Raleigh, awaiting execution for his other crimes. While justice was delayed for Jerri Ann Jones, the resolution of her case brought a measure of closure and ensured that her killer would never again pose a threat to the community.
