Clinton Bankston Jr.: The Athens Murders of 1987
Clinton Bankston Jr. was a juvenile multiple murderer who is frequently included in accounts of American serial killers because he killed five people in two separate attacks in Athens, Georgia, during 1987. Bankston was only 15 years old when he committed the first double murder and had turned 16 by the time of the second attack four months later. His victims were two retired University of Georgia professors and three women from the same family. The extreme violence of the crimes shocked Athens and resulted in an investigation involving local police, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and assistance from the FBI.
The Murders of Glenn and Rachel Sutton
The first victims were Glenn Wallace Sutton, 82, and his wife Rachel Sutton, 78, both retired University of Georgia professors. Glenn Sutton had worked in the university's College of Business Administration, while Rachel Sutton had been a professor in elementary education. They lived quietly in their home on Oglethorpe Avenue in Athens.
The later grand-jury proceedings placed the Sutton murders between April 22 and April 23, 1987. The couple was not discovered until April 25, when police went to their residence after concerned neighbors were unable to contact them. Inside the house investigators found Glenn and Rachel Sutton dead from multiple stab wounds. Their bodies had been placed together and wrapped in carpeting.
The attack immediately became one of Athens' most disturbing unsolved cases. Investigators spent approximately two weeks processing the Sutton residence and continued returning to the property as the investigation progressed. Because there was no immediately obvious suspect, Athens police and Georgia Bureau of Investigation agents eventually sought assistance from the FBI. Authorities were reluctant at the time to publicly disclose many details about the crime, hoping to preserve information that could later be used to identify the killer.
For nearly four months, the killings of the Suttons remained unsolved. The eventual break in their case would come only after three more people were murdered elsewhere in Athens.
The Carr's Hill Triple Murder
On August 15, 1987, a second extraordinarily violent crime occurred at a family property in the Carr's Hill area of Athens. The victims were Ann Orr Morris, her sister Sally Nathanson, and Sally's daughter Helen Nathanson. The women were attacked with a hatchet. Investigators recovered a hatchet associated with the crime, and the physical injuries inflicted on the victims made the scene immediately recognizable as an unusually severe homicide case.
Ann Orr Morris was 63 years old and was a respected artist, silversmith, goldsmith and enamelist. Sally Nathanson was 59, and her daughter Helen was 22. Their deaths transformed what had initially appeared to be one mysterious double homicide into a broader investigation involving five victims killed in two separate incidents only months apart.
Victims
- Glenn Wallace Sutton, 82 — Killed between April 22 and April 23, 1987, at his home on Oglethorpe Avenue in Athens, Georgia. Sutton, a retired University of Georgia professor, was repeatedly stabbed. He and his wife were discovered inside the residence on April 25.
- Rachel Sutton, 78 — Killed between April 22 and April 23, 1987, at the Oglethorpe Avenue home she shared with her husband in Athens, Georgia. The retired University of Georgia professor suffered multiple stab wounds and was found with Glenn Sutton on April 25.
- Ann Orr Morris, 63 — Killed August 15, 1987, at the Carr's Hill family property in Athens, Georgia. Morris was Sally Nathanson's sister and a prominent Athens-area artist and jewelry maker.
- Sally Nathanson, 59 — Killed August 15, 1987, at the Carr's Hill property in Athens, Georgia. She was attacked along with her sister Ann Morris and her daughter Helen.
- Helen Nathanson, 22 — Killed August 15, 1987, at the Carr's Hill property in Athens, Georgia. She was Sally Nathanson's daughter and the youngest of Bankston's five known victims.
The Stolen Car and Bankston's Arrest
The investigation moved rapidly after the Carr's Hill murders. One of the victims' automobiles, Sally Nathanson's Cadillac, was missing. On August 16, 1987, police officers located the vehicle outside a Moreland Avenue residence where Clinton Bankston Jr. was living with his half-brother, Curtis Johnson.
Bankston, who had turned 16 only three months earlier, became the focus of the investigation. He was initially arrested in connection with the three August murders. During questioning, however, his statements began leading detectives toward the still-unsolved killings of Glenn and Rachel Sutton.
The Mysterious "Chris Ward"
Bankston did not initially accept sole responsibility for the violence. During his statements to investigators he repeatedly referred to another person, identified as "Chris" or "Chris Ward," whom he blamed for much of what had happened. According to accounts of the investigation, Bankston portrayed this supposed companion as being deeply involved in the killings and attempted to place much of the responsibility for the violence on him.
Police tried to identify the supposed accomplice but could find no evidence that the person Bankston described actually existed. As investigators continued questioning Bankston and examining his statements, they concluded that "Chris" was apparently an imaginary or invented figure rather than a genuine second killer.
Bankston nevertheless demonstrated knowledge of evidence that connected him to the crimes. Information he supplied during the investigation helped authorities recover physical items associated with the killings, including a bloody shirt, a hatchet and a diploma bearing Rachel Sutton's name that had been discarded behind a Salvation Army building. His statements concerning the "old people" also directed investigators toward the Sutton case.
Bankston Charged With All Five Murders
The investigation soon connected the teenager to both sets of killings. On September 8, 1987, a Clarke County grand jury indicted Bankston on charges that included five counts of malice murder and multiple felony-murder counts. The prosecution alleged that he had murdered Glenn and Rachel Sutton while he was only 15 and then killed Ann Morris, Sally Nathanson and Helen Nathanson after turning 16.
The separation between the two attacks was significant. The Suttons had been killed in April, followed by a period of nearly four months before the Carr's Hill murders in August. Because Bankston killed five people in two distinct episodes separated by time, he has subsequently appeared in scholarly and reference lists of serial murderers, although descriptions of him have also used the broader terms multiple murderer and juvenile murderer.
Mental Health and the Death-Penalty Dispute
Bankston's mental condition became an important part of the criminal proceedings. His unusual statements about the nonexistent "Chris," his shifting accounts of the crimes and evaluations performed after his arrest contributed to substantial questions about his psychological condition. His attorneys ultimately pursued a defense centered in part on his mental health.
Georgia prosecutors initially sought the death penalty. Bankston's age, however, created a major legal obstacle. He had been only 15 during the Sutton murders and 16 during the August murders. His attorneys challenged the state's attempt to execute someone who had not reached his seventeenth birthday when the crimes occurred.
On April 20, 1988, the Supreme Court of Georgia ruled that the applicable Georgia statute prohibited imposing the death penalty on Bankston because he had been younger than 17 when he committed the offenses. The ruling removed execution as a possible punishment but left Bankston facing life sentences for each of the five murders.
Guilty but Mentally Ill Pleas
In May 1988, Bankston resolved the case without a full murder trial. The official Georgia Supreme Court record states that on May 13, 1988, he pleaded guilty but mentally ill to five counts of malice murder. The remaining charges were dropped as part of the disposition of the case.
The court sentenced Bankston to five consecutive life sentences, one for each person he had killed. Consecutive sentences meant that each life term was imposed separately rather than being served simultaneously. The result ensured that the five victims were individually represented in the punishment imposed upon him.
Later Attempts to Challenge the Convictions
Decades later, Bankston continued attempting to challenge the legal validity of his convictions and guilty pleas. In 2019, acting without an attorney, he filed a motion seeking to vacate his convictions and withdraw the guilty pleas that had resulted in his imprisonment. Among his arguments were complaints concerning his legal representation, his treatment as a juvenile and the procedures surrounding his mental competency.
The dispute eventually returned to the Supreme Court of Georgia. On January 13, 2020, the court rejected the effort to obtain relief through the procedure Bankston had chosen. His five murder convictions and five consecutive life sentences remained in place.
Legacy of the Athens Murders
The crimes committed by Clinton Bankston Jr. remain remarkable both for their severity and for the age of the offender. Five residents of Athens were murdered within approximately four months, beginning with an elderly retired academic couple and ending with three women from the Orr-Nathanson family. Bankston was only 15 when the killing began and 16 when he was arrested.
The case also became an important part of Georgia's legal history because of the dispute over whether a juvenile offender could face execution under the state's law at that time. Beyond the legal questions, however, the case represented the loss of five individual lives: Glenn and Rachel Sutton, who had devoted decades to education; Ann Orr Morris, an accomplished artist and craftsperson; Sally Nathanson; and her young daughter Helen. Bankston's guilty but mentally ill pleas formally brought the investigation to an end, and the five consecutive life sentences imposed in 1988 left him imprisoned for the murders that had shaken Athens throughout the spring and summer of 1987.
