Times Georgian, (of Carrollton Georgia) October 2, 2004
By Wayne Hodgin
News Editor
It's been seven years, four months and 16 days since an elderly woman was left for dead after being badly beaten and burned at her home on Highway 113 just north of Carrollton.
One day after the brutal attack on her life, 86-year-old Gladys Allen died in an Atlanta-area hospital.
The house still stands atop a hill at a bend in Highway 113. What once was a small, white-painted home is now yellow and has been rented out to various tenants over the years.
Neighbors who found her almost lifeless body that early morning of May 14, 1997, still have a hard time talking about the devastation of finding their friend lying burned, beaten and cut in her back yard.
"I still have a hard time thinking about it--even today," said Mary Parkman, who still lives across the street from the house in which Gladys Allen lived. "I can't even drive by her house without thinking about it."
Mary Parkman was one of the first people to find Allen that morning and said the incident still makes her leery when she's outside.
"When I'm out in the yard, I still look over my shoulder," Parkman said. "I still make sure my doors are locked."
According to Carroll county authorities, the investigation into Allen's mysterious death remains open--and still remains a mystery.
Recent published reports speculate that local law enforcement may be close to solving the crime. But sheriff's officials said this week that although there have been a few leads come through recently, none have panned out.
A motive never was established in the case. Investigators at the time did not find any signs of forced entry into Allen's home. And no significant clues were ever found, they said.
Up until a month before her death, Gladys Allen's husband lived with her in their home until he was sent to live in a local nursing facility. Hershel Allen, 87, died about a month after his wife's death. He had been in declining health since the news of the attack.
J.G. McCalmon found his cousin's body that morning. After tending to his wife, who was in the hospital at the time, McCalmon drove out to Allen's house to check on her and pulled into their driveway between 7 and 7:30 a.m. and saw what he thought was a person sitting in the back yard.
McCalmon realized that person was Allen and ran to her, knelt beside her and asked her what happened. According to newspaper articles at the time, McCalmon said Allen told him, "J.G., they tried to kill me, and I haven't been able to move."
McCalmon on Friday said Allen's death also remains a mystery to him. "When I found her, she had been burned," he said. "The grass was burned all around her and in another place in the yard."
Inside Allen's house, he said, everything seemed to be in place.
"I've wondered and wondered what the motive could have been," he said. "They were good friends with all their neighbors. I don't know why anyone would have wanted to do something like that."
Stanley Parkman, longtime newspaper publisher, also ran to the aid of his neighbor that morning and, at the time, recalled that McCalmon came to his house to call 911 and to get help.
Parkman's wife, Mary, who was up early to walk, was watering flowers in their yard when McCalmon appeared.
"J.G. came down our driveway blowing the horn and told us that Gladys had been beat up and told us to call 911." Mary Parkman said at the time.
She told her husband to go to Allen's house, and she went to the phone to call 911.
When he arrived at the scene, Parkman, who fond Allen just as McCalmon had described, said, "I knelt down and asked her what happened, and he recognized me. She said, "Stanley, they tried to kill me...They hit me in the head with a brick."
Parkman told the Times Georgian that he was not sure if by "they" Allen meant there were more than one assailant and said he was unable to glean any other information from her.
Allen was taken to Tanner Medical Center in Carrollton and later was transferred to Grade Memorial Hospital's burn unit, where she died.
Carroll County sheriff's Chief Deputy Brad Robinson, who at the time of the incident was the lead investigator on the case, said Friday that law enforcement officials have been investigating Allen's death since the incident.
"As information comes up, we get on it and follow it out," Robinson said. "Whether it was five years ago or yesterday, we continue to work as we get information."
Robinson said nothing significant has ever emerged in the case, and he said he preferred not to comment on his personal feelings or speculate about what happened.
"We worked countless hours with local law enforcement and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, and we'll continue to work until its solved," he said. "Hopefully one day we'll get the lead we're looking for. I am not giving up hope that one day it will be solved."
Debbie Parker, one of the Allen's granddaughters, said Friday she thought her grandmother might have known her attacker or attackers.
"Part of me thinks she knew who her killer was," Parker said. "At the hospital, she was coherent and would answer any question you would ask her. but when she was asked about her assailants, she wouldn't answer. She took it to her grave."
Parker, who lives n North Carolina, said her grandmother's death took a toll on the whole family.
"My Mother was an only child, and it really upsets her even to talk about it today," Parker said. "The crazy things that would go through our minds, even still. It was just horrific. She was the best person. So for someone to do what they did to a defenseless 87-year-old woman is beyond my comprehension."
Part of her, Parker said, wants to know what really happened to her grandmother that day. Part of her wants to know who the attacker or attackers were and to confront them.
"I would love to look someone right in the face and ask why. She would have given them anything. If anybody remembers anything, if they would just come forward."
Parker said she and her mother--Betty Aiken, Allen's daughter--were in Carrollton about three weeks before the incident to see to the ailing Mr. Allen, who had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.
"We had to put Poppy in a nursing home because Nana wasn't able to care for him anymore," Parker said. "With her going in and out of the nursing home, we wondered if it was someone there who knew her routine and was familiar with her comings and goings."
Just like everyone, Allen had her daily habits. Parker said one of the first things her grandmother did in the mornings was to go outside and check the weather and then to walk down to the pasture below the house and talk to the cows." Parker speculates that's what her grandmother was doing the morning of the attack.
She said a strange occurrence had to do with some food that was in her grandmother's freezer. The days she was in Carrollton to tend to her grandfather, Parker said she remembered that her grandmother's freezer out on the back porch was full of food.
"I checked to make sure she had enough stuff to eat and was even going to make a few casseroles for her to have for the next few days or so," Parker said. "The funny thing is when we returned after the attack a lot of stuff was missing from the freezer.
"I've just always wondered whether someone was already out on the porch and stealing stuff from the freezer when she walked out there."
Parker said authorities told her that her grandmother probably was stabbed first with a paring knife that was kept on the porch. Then, she said, they dragged her out into the yard and beat her with a brick--one that was used as a border for her garden.
"I think the attackers went back into the house after they beat her to snoop around," Parker said. "Police found a juice glass that one of the attackers had used to drink water out of. It was still in the sink, and they took a fingerprint off of it."
In the meantime, she said, her grandmother dragged herself around the yard, possibly to get near the road to call for help.
"There were bloody handprints along the brick on the house and along the siding," Parker said. "When they went back outside to find her, that's when I think they set her on fire."
She said it still puzzles her why the attackers did not take anything from the house.
"There was about $600 and a couple of guns under the bed," Parker said. "Nothing was taken."
The Allens had been married about 65 years. Parker said she and her mother had a hard time telling Mr. Allen what had happened to his wife and wondered, considering his frail health, whether to tell him at all.
"At one time during the ordeal we thought about not telling him," Parker said. "but he kept asking where she was and wondering why she hadn't visited him. We finally told him that she had walked outside and that someone hit her with a brick and that she had died. We didn't get into the details.
"I think he understood. The day before, the nurses said he was just as happy and talkative as ever. Then afterward, they said you could tell he was not the same.
"Right before he died, the nurses told me, he kept saying, 'Gladys, I'm on my way. Gladys, I'll be there soon,'" Parker said, she herself choking back tears.
"They loved each other so much. Their love was a day-in and day-out thing for 65 years. I truly think that my grandmother was in that room calling him home."