Your Hometown Newspaper Devoted To The Progress Of Gilmer County

VOL. 139 • NO. 6 • U.S.P.S. NO. 630-280 February 6, 2014 EST. 1875 • CONSOLIDATED 1916 • 75 CENTS

Locals survived‘Snowpocalypse’See Gilmer Living 1B

Cats win traditional regionwrestling titleSee Sports 1C

2014 “Parade of Sweethearts” Coming soon in the February 13, 2014 edition. See page 8B for more info. Deadline: This Friday, Feb. 7 Deadline: This Friday, Feb. 7 Deadline: This Friday, Feb. 7

Snow broughthappiness,headaches See Around Town 1D

In this issue...

@TimesCourier facebook.com/timescourier

National/State Roundup ........2AEditorial ...........................4AChurch News/People.........6–7ARecipe of the Week .............7AObituaries.........................9AThe Upside ......................10AGilmer Living .....................1BTV Guide...........................3BHealth & Fitness..............4–5BLegals...........................6–7BCar Couple ........................7B

Community Chorus ..............8BSports...........................1–4CFocus on Education..........5–6CArrests.............................7CBaptists in Gilmer ...............8CForest Beauty ....................9CDixie Divas ......................10CAround Town......................1DCalendar/Puzzles/Movies.......2DClassifieds.....................4–7DSnow! ..............................8D

Look inside for this week’s money-saving inserts!• CVS • Food Lion • Rite-Aid • Ingles • Family Dollar • Piggly Wiggly • Smart Source • Walmart • Sears • Lowe’s

Photo by Whitney Crouch

Ice and snow made for dangerous driving conditions on many area road-ways last week. Several drivers who were headed home Tuesday afternoonon Old Flat Branch Road ran into slippery conditions partway up a steepsection of road. The center truck slid off the road while trying to assistanother vehicle, and it had to be stabilized with chains in order for the driv-er and passenger to escape. No one was injured. Two additional cars werestranded in the middle of the road farther up the hill.

by Mark Millican

tceditor@timescourier.com

A law enforcement offi-cer who listened to the911 call of a man who hadjust been shot said it washorrible “to literally(hear) the life drainingout of a man.”The dying man was

Raymond Campbell, andthe woman who lay dyingor already dead besidehim in their bed was hiswife, Cynthia Campbell.The Campbells, who

lived in Pickens County,were allegedly murderedby Ben Thomas Abbott ofEllijay. This Sunday, Feb.9, will mark the third

anniversary of the slay-ings.To date, Abbott, 35, has

not stood trial in theAppalachian Judicial Cir-

cuit and continues to sitin the Pickens CountyAdult Detention Center.He is charged with twocounts of felony murder.

‘I did it’At a pre-trial hearing

in front of a MagistrateCourt judge two daysafter the 2011 slayings,

GBI lead investigatorDustin Hamby describedhow Abbott confessed tothe killing of his mother-and father-in-law. Hismotive was to collect ontheir life insurance poli-cies and keep his ownfamily from losing theirhome – a home where theCampbells resided in

Gilmer County beforemoving out and allowingthe Abbotts to move in,court testimony showed.Ben Abbott was in the

insurance business andknew of the policies, theproceedings revealed.Abbott’s wife, Trinity

Justice delayed: The Ben Abbott case

by Pam O’Dell

The O’Dell Report

Five of nine candi-dates vying to replaceSenator Saxby Chamblisas one of Georgia’s twoU.S. Senators participat-ed in a conservativeforum last Saturday inEllijay. Sponsored by theTea Party of GilmerCounty and the GilmerCounty RepublicanParty, the forum with aQ-and-A time lastedthree hours. Attendees at the

North Georgia ChristianAcademy venue included

current U.S. Rep. PaulBroun, Art Gardner, Der-rick Grayson, KarenHandel and Eugene Yu.Candidates not in atten-dance include currentU.S. Reps. Phil Gingreyand Jack Kingston,David Perdue andMichelle Nunn. All attendees had

qualified with the Feder-al Elections Commissionand held similar conser-vative views on fiscalissues. The forum did notaddress social concerns. Broun, a medical doc-

(Ed. note: Court tes-timony in this article istaken from the pages ofthe Pickens CountyProgress.)

See Forum page 3A

See Abbott page 5A

Senate candidates at Ellijay forum

2014 STAR Student, Teacher

Photo by Whitney Crouch

Mel Benjamin Mosley, a Gilmer High School sen-ior, was named the local school system’s 2014STAR Student based on his SAT score and gradepoint average. He selected GHS mathematicsteacher Greg Wingo as his STAR Teacher. Tolearn more, see page 4C in this issue.

Gilmer County Sheriff’s Office

Sheriff Stacy Nicholsonreleased the following inregard to the Jan. 28snow:“As always, last week’s

snow which left icy roads

made life difficult for any-one who had to be out onthem. From my perspec-tive, it came as quite asurprise as the NationalWeather Service had con-sistently predicted snowsouth of Atlanta. In anyevent, I as well as you

understand that weatherpredictions can change ina matter of a short time.“Not being an expert

myself by any means, it ismy understanding that itis almost impossible to

Nicholson: Icy roads impossibleto ‘pre-treat’ during storms

See Icy page 11A

by Mark Millican

tceditor@timescourier.com

Sheriff Stacy Nichol-son was at a conferencein Atlanta last weekwhen the Tuesday snow-storm slammed a largesection of north Georgia— and left him caught inthe middle. Nicholson said al-

though the meetingsbroke up, some of his fel-low sheriffs still gotstuck in the gridlock.“I can tell you Atlanta

was horrendous, it wasan absolute disaster,” hesaid. “By the time we gotto leave it was too badand I-75 was clogged up.We had sheriffs from allover the state that hadjust left and (called backand) said, ‘Don’t try it.’You talk about a helplessfeeling, knowing youneed to be here (inGilmer County) andthere ain’t much you cando about it. When 75 gotcompletely blocked andthen 285, there was justno way.”By staying hot on the

phone with his commandstaff back in Ellijay,

Nicholson learned first-hand what was going on. “Honestly, I believe it

was better here (inGilmer) than it was inother places,” he said. “Imean, there’s no doubtthe roads were slick ...my understanding is ithit here as fast as it didin Atlanta, and in about35 to 40 minutes it wentfrom nothing to theroads being slick.”Nicholson said law

enforcement, in leaguewith public safetyauthorities, “at somepoint” made a decisionTuesday night to shutdown some roads.“When we started hav-

ing accident after acci-dent — or at least carsrunning off the road —we shut down a lot of themain problem spots,which were a lot of thestate highways,” he said.“And that helped. Itmight have been incon-venient but it still savedpeople from wrecking.”Nicholson said the

sheriff’s office respondedto 47 wrecks, but hecalled that number“light.”

“Usually on somethinglike this, it would be 150,it would be higher,” hesaid. “I think the biggestreason is we encouragedpeople to not drive inthis stuff ... (but) some-times people do anyhow.Some of it’s necessity, weunderstand that. Butwhen there’s a road outthere that nobody candrive on, the best thingwe can do is shut itdown.”The affected roads

were Highways 282, 382and 52 West(Chatsworth Highway),primarily, Nicholsonnoted.

Rescue center opened

Gilmer County FireChief Tony Pritchett saidthe storm calls wereabout normal for such anincident.“We tried to offer any

help we could to anybodywho needed it,” hereported. “Our guys werepretty much 24/7 forthree days until thesnow melted.”

Snowstorm left ‘a helplessfeeling’ for stranded lawman

See Helpless page 3A