Watching boys die was nothing new to George Kent Wallace.

Watching boys die was nothing new to George Kent Wallace.

He had killed two teenage boys in the Enterprise, N.C., area and gotten away with it. Forsyth County law enforcement officials strongly suspected him in both slayings, but had no physical evidence they could use to prosecute him. And with both boys dead, there were no witnesses to identify him as the assailant.

So in 1986, when Wallace moved to Fort Smith � where he would continue stalking young boys � he didn't merely paddle his victims and let them go, as he had done in High Point in 1966. This time, he killed his prey so there would be no one to identify him.

"People were really scared," recalls Amy Sherrill, who grew up in the area and later wrote articles about Wallace for the Times Record newspaper in Fort Smith. "They didn't know why this was happening, and it scared a lot of people."

The first victim was 15-year-old Eric Domer of Fort Smith, who disappeared on Feb. 17, 1987, while he was running an errand for his mother. His body turned up five days later in a pond in LeFlore County, Oklahoma, just across the state line from Fort Smith.

The second slaying didn't happen until more than three years later, after Wallace had spent time in an Arkansas prison for an unrelated crime. That victim was 14-year-old Mark McLaughlin of Van Buren, who disappeared on Nov. 11, 1990 � coincidentally, also while he was running an errand for his mother. Authorities found his body the next day, in the same pond where Eric Domer's body had been found.

In both cases, The Paddler had beaten the boys with a wooden paddle before shooting them to death and dumping their bodies in the pond.

Wallace was also suspected of killing a third boy � 12-year-old Alonzo Don Cade of Fort Smith, whose body was found in another pond about a month after the McLaughlin slaying � but he was never officially linked to that crime.

Two other teenage males from Fort Smith also reported encounters with a man believed to have been Wallace. One of the teens said he was actually put in handcuffs and leg irons and driven to a pond � the same one where Domer and McLaughlin's bodies were found � but the kidnapper released him because of all the kicking and screaming he did. The other teen said a man tried to pick him up, too, but he managed to talk his way out of it.

Clearly, in the quarter-century since he had terrorized High point, The Paddler had not lost his thirst for assaulting young boys. He had merely evolved from being a serial paddler to being a serial killer.

Final attack

With at least four killings under his belt, Wallace knew well the feeling of watching someone die.

He would experience that feeling again � for the last time � on Dec. 9, 1990, as he watched 18-year-old Ross Ferguson collapse lifelessly to the ground, another bloody notch on The Paddler's macabre belt of victims. Per his ritual, all that remained was to dispose of the body.

There was just one problem: Wallace only thought he'd seen Ferguson die. In fact, he had not.

Now 44 and living in Fayetteville, Ferguson hasn't told his story publicly in years. The details, though � details of an incident that happened more than 25 years ago � seem fresh in his mind as he recounts in a telephone interview what happened between him and The Paddler.

According to Ferguson, he had just gotten off work from his job at a grocery store in Van Buren, and Wallace confronted him as he was getting in his car.

"He flashed a badge and identified himself as a police officer," Ferguson says. "He told me to get out of my car, which I did, and he walked me to his car, which he had rented � it looked identical to the cars that the county sheriff's deputies would drive. He put handcuffs on me and leg irons, and put me in the back of his car."

Ferguson didn't resist, but he repeatedly asked why he was being arrested. As Wallace drove out of the parking lot, he remained stoic at first, but finally explained that Ferguson's car had been identified as the vehicle used in a robbery in nearby Booneville.

Then he turned and snarled at the teenager, "You young punks think you can get away with anything."

As they rode, Ferguson says he began to suspect Wallace wasn't actually an officer. There was no police radio in his car, and no metal screen between the front and back seat as you'd find in most police vehicles. Then, when Wallace reached Washburn Mountain and pulled off the road into a dark, secluded area � where the car was hidden from the road � Ferguson knew this was no officer.

Wallace killed the engine, then got in the back seat with his victim and began beating him with what Ferguson says was some sort of wooden dowel rod similar to the handle of a plunger.

"He beat me repetitively in the same spot on my left hip for what seemed like a long time � I was really black and blue," Ferguson recalls. "By the time he got done, I pretty much knew who he was. I remembered the other kidnappings and murders of boys in the area. I knew he had shot them, so I was expecting him to shoot me, too."

Ferguson made his peace with God, fully believing he would die that night.

Meanwhile, Wallace dragged Ferguson out of the car and began walking him through the darkness toward a pond. Walking the rough terrain in leg irons caused Ferguson to stumble several times, but Wallace steadied him.

"I kept asking if he was gonna shoot me, and he would just laugh," Ferguson says. "He had this really sinister laugh."

Without warning, Wallace suddenly began stabbing Ferguson in the back with a knife. After the fifth blow, the teen started to fall, causing the sixth and final stab to land in his right arm. Ferguson fell face down on the ground and pretended to be dead, a reaction he said was pure instinct.

"He didn't check my pulse or anything," Ferguson says. "He just grabbed my feet and started dragging me down the hill toward the pond. When he got to the bank, he took off the leg irons and the handcuffs. Then he rolled me over and started to undo my pants."

That was one of The Paddler's odd killing rituals: He pulled his victims' pants down before disposing of their bodies, as if he wanted to humiliate them one last time.

In Ferguson's case, though, it gave him the opportunity he needed to escape. Even as Wallace had dragged Ferguson's body across the ground, which was littered with rocks and sticks, the teen hadn't flinched. Now, though, the pretense was over: It was time to run.

"I jumped up and called him a few names, and I punched him and knocked him down," Ferguson says, recalling the look of shock on Wallace's face. "Then I took off running up the hill."

The Paddler, momentarily dazed, recovered quickly and gave chase. Normally, a 49-year-old man would have no shot at catching an 18-year-old kid, but with Ferguson weakened from the assault and losing blood by the second � not to mention struggling to keep his pants up � Wallace gained ground on his prey. Ferguson could hear the killer huffing and puffing behind him as he stumbled toward the top of the hill.

"I fell down multiple times, but kept getting back up," Ferguson says. "The last time, I didn't think I could get up � I was bleeding pretty heavily and didn't have much strength left � but I had some divine intervention. I got back up and managed to make it to his car. I looked back and could see him in the moonlight, still running."

Ferguson hurriedly locked the car doors one by one, locking the last door just as Wallace arrived and placed his hand on the door handle. The killer stood there panting, shock still on his face, as he stared through the driver's-side window at Ferguson.

"He didn't say anything � he just stood there," Ferguson says. "I looked down, and amazingly, the key was in the ignition. I started the car, and he walked away. I tried to run over him, but he climbed over a big mound of dirt, and I never saw him again."

Ferguson drove to the first house he could find and called the authorities, who captured Wallace that same night about a mile from where he had tried to kill Ferguson.

This time, Wallace knew, he would not get out of prison alive. At long last, the reign of The Paddler had come to an end.

And in an ironic twist of fate, Ferguson � whom Wallace thought he had watched die � would be the one to watch Wallace die.

Death Row

Wallace spent 10 years in an Oklahoma prison, patiently awaiting death.

After his arrest, he had readily confessed to the Domer and McLaughlin killings � though not the Cade slaying � and told a judge he wanted to die for his crimes, but the wheels of justice and due process turn slowly for a man on Death Row.

Meanwhile, nearly a thousand miles away, Allen Gentry prayed Wallace would not die � at least, not yet. Not without first confessing to the killing of two more teens, Jeffrey Lee Foster and Thomas Stewart Reed. Their families needed that closure, and frankly, after years of not being able to pin those two killings on Wallace, the Forsyth County Sheriff's Department veteran officer needed the closure, too.

As early as 1990, right after Wallace's arrest, Gentry traveled to Oklahoma to see if he could get a jailhouse confession out of Wallace.

"I think I can help you, Mr. Gentry," Wallace told him, "but it's not time yet."

Gentry returned to North Carolina dejected, but he didn't give up hope. For the next six years, he corresponded with inmate number 196138 at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary � George Kent Wallace, a.k.a. The Paddler � hoping to get that confession. Their relationship was almost cordial, with Wallace even sending the officer Christmas cards from his cell on Death Row and telling him about his renewed commitment to Jesus and his upcoming re-baptism. Every six months or so, Gentry would remind Wallace about the confession he was seeking, each time getting the same cryptic response: "It's not time yet."

Finally, in January 1996, Gentry received a letter in which Wallace wrote, "I am now willing to discuss 'old events' with you," clearly alluding to the Foster and Reed killings. "Please make an appointment to interview me."

The next month, Gentry visited Wallace again and got his confession for the two teens' slayings. Wallace actually wrote out his confessions, describing in detail how he had lured the two boys into his car and what he had done to them.

"I remember the relief I felt because I was finally going to get some closure for those two families," Gentry says. "It was a long time coming."

Execution

Gentry still has those written confessions, which he keeps in a 4-inch-thick folder dedicated solely to those two killings. The folder also contains police reports, crime-scene photos, mug shots of Wallace, portraits of the victims, cards and letters from Wallace, old newspaper clippings and even a piece of evidence sealed in a plastic bag � the knife blade from one of the killings, which had broken off in the boy's back as he was being stabbed.

Also in the folder, buried among all those records that paint such a horrific picture of George Kent Wallace, is the one document that offers any sort of sympathetic view of the man. It's a sworn affidavit from 1994, signed by an aunt of Wallace's who lived in Beckley, West Virginia.

While not defending her nephew or his actions, she spoke of the negative factors in his life that likely had contributed to the person he had become: He was bullied as a child � kids even threw rocks at him and beat him up � because he was buck-toothed and wore thick glasses. On one occasion, the aunt stated, "he came home with rocks in his (bottom) put there by three bullies who tormented him regularly."

Furthermore, she said, Wallace's father wasn't home a lot and had a strained relationship with his son. His mother had a nervous breakdown and suffered from mental illness, as did one of his sisters.

As for his uncontrollable urge to paddle boys, there is this: Wallace's aunt stated he often received brutal whippings at the hands of his father, a punishment that continued until he was old enough to leave home. In turn, Wallace sometimes spanked his little sister when she acted up, and by the ninth grade, he was getting into trouble for whipping other boys.

Gentry admits to feeling a twinge of sympathy for Wallace and his troubled upbringing, but when he was finally executed � on Aug. 10, 2000 � the veteran officer didn't shed any tears.

"For me personally, I felt like the world was a better place with him gone," he says. "He hurt so many people."

Ferguson, whose miraculous escape had led to Wallace's arrest, agrees. He was there as a witness that night, when the executioner's injection of three lethal drugs ended The Paddler's life, and it gave him peace.

"Not as much for me as for the other victims, the ones he actually killed � I wanted to see that justice for them more than for me," Ferguson says. "I did take comfort in watching him die, but I thought it was too humane � he deserved much worse for what he put all those kids through. I have no problem saying that."

jtomlin@hpenews.com |