Jerry Heidler was sentenced to death by the State of Georgia for the murders of the Daniels family
According to court documents Jerry Heidler would murder four members of the Daniels family: Danny and Kim Daniels, their 16-year-old daughter Jessica and their 8-year-old son Bryan.
Jerry Heidler would then kidnap three of the Daniels foster children and would sexually assault one of the young children
Jerry Heidler would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
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Jerry Heidler Now
MAJOR OFFENSE: MURDER
MOST RECENT INSTITUTION: GA DIAG CLASS PRISON
MAX POSSIBLE RELEASE DATE: DEATH
Jerry Heidler Case
A couple who cared for foster children were shot to death today, along with two of their own children, by an intruder who then took three other children from the home and abandoned them unharmed some miles away.
Police arrested Jerry Scott Heidler, 20, at a relative’s house in nearby Alma about seven hours after the bodies were discovered. He was jailed on murder, kidnapping and burglary charges.
“We do not think it was a random attack. We know that he did know them,” said prosecutor Rick Malone. “They had seen him from time to time in the community.”
Heidler allegedly broke into the house as the family slept and killed Danny and Kim Daniels, their 16-year-old daughter Jessica and their 8-year-old son Bryant.
Deputies found two foster children, 10 months and 4 years old, unharmed inside the home
The kidnapped children were the couple’s 10- and 8-year-old daughters, and a 9-year-old foster child, also a girl, said Sylvia Dennis, spokeswoman for the Department of Family and Children Services in Toombs County.
The girls were dropped off on the side of a road in Bacon County, two counties to the south. A farmer found them and called authorities, who alerted police in Toombs County. The bodies were discovered when deputies went to the family’s one-story brick home.
Left alive at the home were a 10-month-old boy and another boy, who was the brother of the 9-year-old foster girl, Dennis said.
Dennis said the slain couple had been foster parents since 1995. “They opened the doors of their home to probably 15, 16 children,” she said. “We have contact with them weekly. We had no worry about their safety.” The foster father was a rural mail carrier for the post office in nearby Lyons.
Kim Daniels and her siblings had been foster children themselves. Her former foster father, Simmie Driggers, said she and her husband were special people. “They took children nobody else wanted and gave them a good home.” CAPTION: Melinda Dixon, left, and Angie Wood, right, friends of the Daniels family, comfort each other at a news conference about the murders and abductions