Jerry Heidler was sentenced to death by the State of Georgia for a quadruple murder. According to court documents Jerry Heidler would break into a home and kill two parents and two of their children while they slept. Jerry Heidler would abduct three other children from the home, one of the girls told police she was molested, the three children would be found alive. Jerry Heidler would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death.
Jerry Heidler 2021 Information
YOB: 1977
RACE: WHITE
GENDER: MALE
HEIGHT: 6’02”
WEIGHT: 215
EYE COLOR: HAZEL
HAIR COLOR: BROWN
MAJOR OFFENSE: MURDER
MOST RECENT INSTITUTION: GA DIAG CLASS PRISON
MAX POSSIBLE RELEASE DATE: DEATH
Jerry Heidler More News
Danny and Kim Daniels lived in the town of Santa Claus in Toombs County[, Georgia] with their seven children, three of whom were foster children. Heidler’s sister was in the Daniels’ care as a foster child for 45 days in 1995, and it was then that he began to frequent the house and occasionally to stay there overnight. Months before the murders, Mr. Daniels noticed that Heidler, 20 years old at the time, was beginning to develop a relationship
with his 16 year old daughter, Jessica. He had a conversation with Heidler, after which Heidler stopped visiting the Daniels’ home.
At approximately 5:00 a.m. on December 4, 1997, the police in Bacon County[, Georgia] found three young girls on the street in their nightclothes. The girls said they had been kidnapped from the Daniels’ house in Toombs County by a man they knew as Scott Taylor, who drove them to Bacon County in a white van. The police subsequently learned from DFCS [Division of Family and Child Services] that “Scott Taylor” was actually Heidler. The ten-year-old victim told the police that Heidler sexually assaulted her in the van while in Toombs County. This was corroborated by evidence of physical trauma to the child and by DNA testing. The eight-year-old victim told the police that she witnessed the sexual assault. From a photographic lineup, each of the three girls separately identified Heidler as the kidnapper.
Toombs County police officers went to the Daniels’ house, where they found the bodies of the four victims. Bryant Daniels, eight years old, was found lying on his bed face-down, where he died from massive head trauma caused by a close-range shotgun blast. Both Mr. and Mrs. Daniels were found lying in their bed, each having been killed by multiple shotgun blasts. The body of Jessica Daniels also was found lying in the master bedroom, near a doorway that led into the hallway. She had been killed by a close-range shotgun blast to the back of her head. A Remington 1100 semi-automatic shotgun was missing from Mr. Daniels’ gun cabinet, the door to which was open. Seven spent shotgun casings were found throughout the house. A firearms expert testified that the Remington 1100 shotgun holds six shotgun shells, so the shooter must have reloaded at least once. A neighbor heard, at 1:45 a.m., noises that could have been shots and the police determined that the assailant entered the house by using a ladder to climb through a bathroom window. A fingerprint lifted from this window matched Heidler’s fingerprint. DNA taken from saliva on a cigarette butt found on the floor in the house matched Heidler’s DNA.
After dropping the girls off in Bacon County, Heidler went to his mother’s house where he slept and played video games with his brother. Heidler asked his brother
if he had ever killed anyone, and his brother said no. Jerry Heidler then said that killing “gives you a rush, makes you want to go out and kill more people.” After his arrest, Heidler confessed to the crimes. He told the police that he threw the shotgun into a river and the kidnapped girls confirmed this assertion.
https://casetext.com/case/heidler-v-gdcp-warden
