Howard Belcher to be Served with Death Penalty Notice TOMORROW 01/04/05

Defendant Howard Belcher/04SC22819

Judge Thelma Wyatt Cummings Moore/4-E

Atlanta-Defendant Belcher (37) is scheduled for arraignment (at which time the State intends to serve him with notice that it intends to seek the death penalty against him) tomorrow 01/04/05 at 9:30 AM; however, the arraignment date may be postponed until next week. Feel free to check with me in the morning on this.

Belcher has been indicted for the 5 October 2002 murder of Mark Schaller (40). Belcher was formally charged with murder, felony murder, aggravated assault, and theft by taking. Mr. Schaller was found beaten and strangled in his home on Dutch Valley Road in northeast Atlanta. Belcher was convicted and sentenced to life in prison earlier this year for the October 2002 murder of a Paulding County man and is a suspect in several other murders in the metro-Atlanta area that occurred around this same time.

CONTACT: Erik Friedly, 404.224.0560 (office); 770.583.6069 (pager); erik.friedly@co.fulton.ga.us