A drifter and unemployed construction worker, 36-year-old Jerry Marcus was arrested in Starkville, Mississippi, on April 17, 1987, charged with the day-old murder of Dorothy Davis, age 26.

In custody, he promptly confessed to the crime, along with the slayings of six other women in Alabama, Tennessee, and Georgia, killed since 1971. 

After scanning the suspect's record, Lowndes County Sheriff Louis Harper estimated that Marcus might have claimed fifteen victims in his sixteen years of aimless wandering around the South.

Michael Newton - An Encyclopedia of Modern Serial Killers - Hunting Humans

A serial killer in 1970’s Alabama, Jerry Marcus, confessed to using charm to make his victims feel safe. He said they didn’t suspect his shy personality was hiding a dangerous soul.

The bodies were found in shallow graves in the back yard of a house occupied until last year by Richard White. Neighbors of White were stunned. A neighbor said the suspect seemed like ''a normal guy'' who would ask him to drink a few beers and ''always had a neighborly handshake when I saw him. Neighbors are freaking out. How would you like to know the man you said ‘good morning’ to everyday is a killer?''

Excerpted from The Casper Star-Tribune (WY) – 12 September 2003

SEX: M RACE: W TYPE: N MOTIVE: Sex.

VENUE: Alabama/Mississippi/Tennessee/Georgia

MO: Trasient rape-slayer of women.

DISPOSITION: Confessed seven murders; life term on one count in Alabama, 1988.