Translated material
Survive the night in Santa Claus
10-year-old Amber Daniels lived in the tiny town of Santa Claus, Georgia, in a large family: with three siblings and three adopted siblings. A month before the New Year, her mother Kim decorated the house and decorated the Christmas tree, but she was unable to celebrate her favorite holiday. Late at night on December 4, 1997, police found Amber and her two sisters on the road 50 kilometers from home, wearing only their pajamas. Read about what happened that night in the weekly true crime column “Colds”.
On New Year's Eve, a man armed with a shotgun stole three little girls from their home. They knew the kidnapper well
On the night of December 4, 1997, eight-year-old Amber Daniels was awakened by a familiar voice. Jerry Scott Heidler, 20, a family friend, stood over her and repeated: “Wake up, wake up, you have to wake up.”
Jerry insisted that Amber and her two sisters urgently needed to run away from home, and begged her to come with him as soon as possible. Amber knew Jerry: he often visited their home and looked after her older sister. In Amber's large family, many considered Jerry to be another brother. So she agreed to go with him.
Help Kholod tell human stories
We put people at the center of our journalism and talk about people who face injustice, but do not lose spirit and continue to fight for their rights and freedoms. To continue covering people's stories, we need the support of readers - thanks to your donations, we continue to work, despite government pressure.
- Foreign card
- Map of the Russian Federation ↘︎
- Patreon ↘︎
- Translation
- Crypt
Monthly
One-time
5 €
- 10 €
- 20 €
30 €
5 €
- 10 €
- 20 €
- Other
- Bank of the Russian Federation
- Foreign bank
Card number:
5536 9138 6472 8742
Copied!
Recipient:
Taisiya Bekbulatova
Copied!
Recipient:
Projektas Šaltis
Copied!
Account number:
LT613500010016198323
Copied!
SWIFT BIC:
EVIULT2VXXX
Copied!
Bank:
Lietuvos Bankas (Bank of Lithuania)
Copied!
Comment - purpose of payment:
Parama įstatymų numatytais tikslais (be konkretaus tikslo)
Copied!
We ask you to provide a comment so that we can accurately determine the receipt of funds. The phrase is translated as follows: “Support for statutory purposes (without a specific purpose).”
Amount: €
Donate
By making a donation, you accept the privacy policy
As she left the house, Amber heard her 10-month-old brother Gabe crying and 4-year-old Corey hiding under the kitchen table. When asked why they didn’t take them with them, Jerry said that their parents would definitely come back for them.
“I was terrified. I heard the girls [sisters] crying and didn’t understand what was happening. <…> [I asked:] “Why are we leaving them, why are we leaving them?” He said, “Your mom and dad will come back and get them.” Jerry was always kind to us, so we thought it was okay to leave home with him,” Amber recalled .
An exemplary family in a magical city
Amber lived in the family of Kim and Danny Daniels - Kim was her mother, and Danny was her stepfather. Together with other brothers and sisters, they lived in the tiny town of Santa Claus with a population of only 200 people. Neighbors knew that Kim and Danny had suffered from alcohol addiction in the past—guardianship authorities even took Amber away from her mother.
However, both Kim and Danny were able to stop drinking and rebuild their lives. In 1992, they met at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and soon got married and were able to take Amber from the shelter.
“The day social services allowed me to return to my mother was probably one of the best days of my life,” Amber said . “I ran into her arms, and a man stood next to her: he called me home and was ready to love me as much as my mother loved me.”
Amber's mother, Kim Daniels, grew up in a foster family and knew from her own experience how difficult it can be for orphans. Even though she and Danny already had daughters, Amber and Jessica, they decided they would help children without parents.
The American Dream is still out of reach The average American can't achieve it even after adding up their lifetime earnings World 6 min read
They began to take in children who were temporarily taken from their parents so that they would not have to live in an orphanage. Since 1995, they have welcomed seven children into the family. Some subsequently returned to their biological families, while others remained with the Danielses.
“They took children who were unwanted and helped them find a good home,” said Kim’s adoptive father, Simmie Driggers.
At different times, up to 16 children lived in their family.
Troubled teenager
One of the girls who came into Kim and Danny's care was eight-year-old Joanna Moseley. The girl grew up in a dysfunctional family: her mother, as well as her own and adoptive fathers, were alcoholics. Social workers said that when they came to the house where Joanna and her mother lived, she threatened them with black magic and voodoo.
“I immediately realized that she would become my best friend. She was the same age as me. She was very sweet, and I loved her red hair,” Amber recalled when she met Joanna.
From time to time, Joanna began to be visited by her older brother, 20-year-old Jerry Scott Heidler. The Daniels saw Jerry going through a difficult period: he suffered from alcohol addiction and abused substances. They decided to help him: they took him to church , allowed him to play with the children and allowed him to stay overnight with them. Jerry got along with the Daniels children.
“I remember that he carried me on his back and put me on his shoulders. Jerry was a lot of fun,” Amber said about him. “He always played with us and seemed very loving and kind.” He seemed like a normal person, just like anyone else who came to visit us.”
After 45 days, Joanna was returned to her parents. Jerry at first continued to visit, and then for some reason he suddenly stopped.
The holiday is coming to us
Santa Claus in Georgia is famous because, according to locals, everyone believes in Jesus and Santa Claus. Despite its small population, it has always attracted tourists: all year round you can find New Year's entertainment, and the streets are named after the Christmas holidays - Sleigh Street, Rudolf Road, Noel Street (from the English Noel - one of the words used to call Christmas). The local town hall is decorated especially pompously on the eve of the holidays. Every year by December 25, people from all over the country send hundreds of letters to Santa Claus to the city administration.
Santa from a shopping center In Toronto, children were wished a happy Christmas by a serial killer for many years. He made cupcakes for neighbors, gave flowers to friends and killed gays Crime 6 min read
For the Daniels, Christmas has always been a special holiday: as a child, Kim spent a lot of time in orphanages, which is why she often had to celebrate Christmas and New Year without loved ones. Because of this, she wanted her children, adopted or not, to have “magical” holidays. She always bought a lot of gifts, and the attic was filled with children's toys.
They prepared for the holidays in advance: already at the beginning of December the house was decorated with garlands and there was a Christmas tree in the common room.
"Run as fast as you can"
On the night of December 4, 1997, Jerry woke Amber, put her and her two sisters in a minivan and announced that he would take them to his parents. After half an hour of driving along the night road, the girls began to worry. They became especially scared when Jerry stopped the car under the bridge.
He climbed into the back seats where Amber and her sisters were sitting. That's when Amber noticed a knife in Jerry's holster and a shotgun on the floor of the minivan. Jerry stripped and raped Amber.
“I started crying loudly and he told me that if I didn’t stop, he would do the same to my sisters. I stopped crying because I didn’t want him to hurt them,” Amber recalled .
When it was all over, Jerry got back behind the wheel of the minivan and drove the girls further. They drove in silence until he stopped on a bridge over the river. He got out of the car, took Amber and her sisters outside and walked to the edge to throw the shotgun into the river. At that moment, Amber decided that they had a chance to escape.
“A voice rang out in my head: “This is your chance. You're no longer in a minivan. Run. You can hide in the forest, just run as fast as you can,’” Amber recalled.
The three girls tried to run away, but Jerry caught up with one of them. He threatened that if the girls did not return, he would kill their sister.
“He said he would throw her over the bridge and I would never see her again,” Amber recalled.
They had to return, he again drove them into the car and drove further.
A pedophile kidnapped a schoolgirl and convinced her that she had been abducted by aliens. He managed to evade responsibility thanks to a sexual relationship with the girl’s parents. Crime 7 min read
At the Daniels' house
However, the road soon came to a dead end. Feeling nervous, Jerry took the girls out of the car and ordered them to stay put.
“He started screaming and repeating: ‘I’ll be back in five minutes. I'll be back in five minutes. You better stay put,” Amber recalled.
Amber and her sisters stood still. When the headlights of his car disappeared from sight, they realized that they were several tens of kilometers from home in their pajamas. Soon another car appeared on the road, but it was not Jerry, but a local farmer. He called the police.
An American woman killed her husband and staged her own kidnapping . She was given away by a gun that didn’t even fire. Crime 4 min read
By 5 a.m., police arrived at the Daniels' house. The door was slightly open, but Deputy Mike Harlin knocked anyway. Seeing a child lying on a bunk bed through the window, he went inside.
Already in the house he heard the cry of a child and music on the radio. When he walked into the room through the window of which he had seen the child, he discovered the body of eight-year-old Bryant Daniels. Another boy, four-year-old Corey Daniels, was sitting under the table in one of the rooms.
“Mommy and Daddy are dead. They were shot by their brother,” he told Harlin, crying.
He and Corey continued to explore the house and discovered an empty gun locker. When Harlin went upstairs to Kim and Danny's bedroom, he couldn't open the door - it seemed to be propped open by something. Corey showed him another entrance, through the bathroom and laundry room.
Entering the bedroom, Harlin saw three bodies: 33-year-old Kim Daniels and 47-year-old Danny Daniels were lying in the bed, and the body of their 16-year-old daughter Jessica was blocking the door. All were killed by gunshots.
Execution
Seven hours later, Jerry was detained at his mother's house in the city of Alma, almost 90 kilometers from Santa Claus.
Returning home, he went to bed and then sat down to play computer games with his brother. As detailed in court documents, Jerry asked his brother if he had ever killed. He replied that no, and then Jerry said that murder “gives a surge of strength, makes you want to kill even more people.”
At the trial, Jerry admitted to the murders and rape, and also said that he threw the shotgun into the river. As the court found out, the reason why Jerry committed the crime was his conversation with Danny, the father of the Daniels family.
A few months before the New Year, Danny noticed that the then 20-year-old Jerry began courting his daughter Jessica, who was then only 16 years old. Danny didn't like this - he believed that Jerry was too old for Jessica, and forbade him to come to their house.
A few months later, on the night of December 4, 1997, Jerry got drunk while playing pool and stole a neighbor's minivan. He drove it to the Daniels' house, took a ladder and climbed through the window into the bathroom on the second floor of their house.
Once inside, he went straight to the locker where Danny kept his Remington brand semi-automatic shotgun. He took the shotgun out of his locker, loaded it, and lit a cigarette. And having finished smoking and extinguishing the bull on the floor, he went to the bedroom in which Kim and Danny were sleeping and shot the owners.
After that, he went into eight-year-old Bryant’s room: he turned on the light and shot him - the boy died on the spot. The sound of gunfire woke up Jessica. When she reached her parents' bedroom door, Jerry came up behind her and shot her in the head.
Jerry left evidence at the crime scene that confirmed his guilt: fingerprints on the bathroom window sill and DNA on a cigarette butt.
The trial took place from August 23 to September 3, 1999. The examination revealed that Jerry had “a range of [mental] disorders that affected his perception and ability to think,” and that “he had experienced significant emotional difficulties since childhood.”
Jerry was given four death sentences. In addition to these, he received several prison sentences - in particular, one life sentence for aggravated sexual assault, another for kidnapping causing bodily harm, and another 130 years for other charges. He regularly files appeals against his death sentence, which is why he has not yet been carried out.
In order not to miss the main materials of “Cold”, subscribe to our social networks!
Kholod needs your help to continue working
We continue to work, resisting bans and repression, to preserve independent journalism for the Russia of the future. How do we do this? Thanks to the support of thousands of caring people.
What do we dream about?
About the simple and at the same time complex - the opportunity to work further. Life will change beyond recognition many times, but we, the editors of Kholod, want to stay close to you, our readers.
Support Kholod today so we can continue to do what we do best - be independent media. Thank you!
Author: Kholod editorial board Illustrations: Lidia Zimogorova