Deep in the heart of the Bible Belt, in a place where neighbors watch out for each other’s kids, it was the worst kind of news.

What happened in the rolling hills of Georgia would divide what was once a close community. It was a terrible crime and a stunning arrest would devastate three families.

It all began in the small town of Carrollton, Ga. on April 26, 2004 with a call to 911.

8-year-old Amy Yates was missing and her parents Tom and Shari were frantic.

911 Operator: When was she last seen?

Tom Yates, faher:  About an hour ago. She asked me if she could go ride her bike. The bike is parked two trailers away from where she was supposed to be and she’s nowhere to be found in the trailer park anywhere.

Shari Yates: I was scared.  And, when he had called 911, I just let out an awful wail.  I mean I just knew something bad had happened to my daughter. 

Tom Yates: I just kept saying, “Baby, come home. Daddy loves you. We miss you. We want you home.”

Amy was one of the most popular kids at the Twin Oaks mobile home park. Big sister to 7-year-old Danielle, Amy was known for her kindness to everyone, including 12-year-old Johnathon Adams, a charming but often troubled boy who struggled with a learning disability.

Rob Stafford, Dateline Correspondent: Tell me about Amy Yates.

Johnathon Adams: I mean we never had any problems.

Stafford: Pretty girl?

Adams: Yeah pretty.

16-year-old Chris Gossett, a mentally disabled teenager, liked her too.  At 6’5”, he was known around the trailer park as the gentle giant.

Chris Gossett: She’s nice and she’s gentle, too.  And she’d give you practically anything, if you want something bad.

Chris’s mom, Jean Gossett looked at Amy as one of her own.

Jean Gossett: She had a smile that would light the world.  It was beautiful.

On that Monday evening in April, Amy’s 9^th birthday was only days away.  She was anxious to deliver party invitations to the Gossetts, who lived just few trailers away from her own.  Her father says she left home at 6 p.m. riding her bike and carrying a white notebook.

Tom Yates: Be home at seven o’clock is what I told her.  And, that was the last thing I said to her.

But by 7:30, Amy still hadn’t returned, so her mother, Shari, went to the Gossetts to find her.

Shari Yates: I asked them where was Amy?  And, they said, “What do you mean where is Amy?” I said, “Well, she was supposed to be coming over here.”

Jean Gossett: She was devastated.  She was scared to death.  She was crying.  So, I told the kids, "Let’s get up and go. We’ve got to help them find her."

The Gossetts joined what would soon be a huge search party. Even the kids in the park pitched in, including Chris Gossett and Johnathon Adams. Tom Yates says both boys reported seeing Amy earlier that day.

Stafford: So, Chris Gossett says he saw Amy by the railroad tracks. Johnathon Adams said he saw her by the trampoline.

Tom Yates: Yes. 

Stafford: You checked both places.  Any sign of Amy?

Tom Yates: No. 

Soon Amy’s mother did see a sign of her daughter, but it frightened her even more.

Shari Yates: I saw her bike.  And, it was parked in between two empty trailers.

Her blue bike, Amy’s prized possession was left the way she always parked it with the kickstand down. Amy was nowhere in sight.

As the evening turned to night, police brought in a search dog, as volunteers swarmed the 10-acre park. By 10 p.m., 3 hours after her disappearance, what seemed like a break: Amy’s father heard the police had found her.

Tom Yates: I go frantically running back down to the house to see my daughter and I said, “Where’s my daughter, where’s my daughter?”

Amy had been found but the news was not good.

Tom Yates: The two chaplain police officers walked in and I saw little gold crosses on their shirts. And, I knew right then that my daughter was dead. At that point I just collapsed.

Shari Yates: I’m trying to attend to him and take in the news that my daughter’s not alive.

Soon word reached the Gossett family, the friends Amy was on her way to see when she disappeared.

Jean Gossett: I said, “Well, how’s Amy?”  He said, “It’s not good, she’s dead.” Oh, my God.  It was horrible.  I was thinking about her mom and dad, her little sister.

Amy’s death meant Chris Gossett had lost a playmate.

Stafford: What’s your favorite memory of Amy?

Chris Gossett: Her playing a video game with me.  I miss that.

Over at the Adams’ trailer, the news left Johnathon upset and bewildered.

Adams:  I mean I just couldn’t believe it. I mean who would want to kill an 8 year old girl?

Amy was gone...and deputies knew her death was no accident.

Tom Yates: They told us that she had been strangled to death.

Stafford: This is a murder case.

Tom Yates: This is a murder.

And the details of the murder were gruesome. Deputies found Amy’s body at the bottom of this hill on the edge of a ditch; her white notebook lay five feet way. Although there was no sexual assault, her blue jeans were unzipped and opened but not pulled down; though no one would understand why until much later. Most obvious was the massive bruising across Amy’s chest and around her neck. The brutality of the crime was hard to fathom.

But within hours police had a suspect. The age of the alleged killer was almost as shocking as the crime.

Tom Yates: We find out that a 12-year-old boy had been taken into custody because he says that he had contact with our daughter.

Stafford: And who is that 12-year-old boy?

Tom Yates: Johnathon Adams.

He was the same boy who lived in the trailer park, often played with Amy, and immediately volunteered to look for Amy when she went missing. It was hard to believe.

Tom Yates: Yeah. We were like, “Well he’s a troubled kid but…he killed our daughter?”

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