- Publication: Athens Daily News
- Author: Joan Stroer, Staff Writer
- Original Publication Date: Friday, April 23, 1993
People move through the doors of the Greyhound bus station or emerge from incoming buses into the quiet Broad Street building, asking about schedules and routes. Sometimes, those who remember ask about Jennifer Stone.
“A lot of times they’ll ask, ‘Did they ever catch who killed the girl who lived behind the bus station?’,” said station owner Rex Street, leaning his elbows on the ticket counter. “Unfortunately we’ve had to answer negatively so far.”
Though Street, who moved to Athens from Detroit three months before Stone’s slaying, never met the student, he has become an unofficial town crier on the unsolved case.
“I didn’t even notice some of the small crimes — but that just hit like a ton of bricks,” he said.
Stone’s violent end has made Street and others realize that they live and work in a corner of the county’s highest crime zone. The area has nearly double the number of violent incidents of each of Clarke County’s 13 other zones and encompassed three of last year’s 11 murder sites.
Near Stone’s former house, nervous merchants erected chain-link fences to block Clayton Street alleys — hangouts for drunks and drug users. They also organized a ‘business-watch,’ put up high-intensity lights and encouraged police to visit their end of downtown more often.
Police are careful to point out that the city’s core — bounded by Broad, Pulaski, Thomas and Dougherty streets — changed rapidly from a retail area in the 1980s “where they rolled up the sidewalks at 7 p.m.” to an entertainment arena now hosting about 50 after-hour businesses with liquor licenses.
Police were called to the area around the intersection of Hull and Clayton streets at least 96 times last year.
“Anytime you have growth you’re going to have an increase in crime,” Athens-Clarke police Lt. Mac McCrary said.
Merchants say things began changing for them after Stone’s slaying: “I think that was actually when we became concerned. We had very few police at that time,” said Ann Shepherd, of Chick Piano Co., who noted that police have always responded quickly over the years to burglaries at her Clayton Street business.
There was a time when no one was permanently assigned to the downtown blocks, but a year ago six police officers patrolled the three downtown zones by car or foot and now twelve have that assignment.
Police say the area’s reputation is worse than its reality. Actually, assaults near Stone’s former house are rare, murders rarer.
This year, officers have taken 49 reports there. Only one was for aggravated assault.
“There’s been an odd incident or two,” said McCrary, who added that perception has made some longtime Athenians afraid to come downtown at night.
But others feel the proximity of crowds and patrolling officers may give pedestrians an exaggerated feeling of safety.
[Map] Zone 8 / Perimeter — Murder site: 187 Hull St., body found at 8:30 p.m. (Clayton, Hull, Pulaski, Lumpkin, Broad; Greyhound Bus Station; Holiday Inn). “There were nearly 100 police calls in the area around Hull and Clayton streets in ’92.” (Janet Beckley, Wilson Lowrey)