Apartment Choice

Along the busy Peachtree Industrial Boulevard in Dunwoody is a sprawling collection of two- story apartment buildings . The units are worn but relatively kept up. Dozens of children play soccer or run in the parking lots. And numerous vans with ladders atop their roofs indicate a working class clientele . The buildings and their occupants might be largely unremarkable, but the Dunwoody Glen and Lacota apartment complexes and their 2,000-plus mostly Hispanic residents are now the focus of a controversy that has divided this newly incorporated suburban enclave and led to a federal lawsuit . In 2011, Dunwoody officials pushed a bond referendum that would raise money to demolish two aging apartment complexes and build a sprawling — and badly needed — park. Then- Mayor Ken Wright extolled the effort in a press release just before the vote but added that while the city “regrets the need to displace residents (in) 785 apartment units” it would work to relocate those citizens, including...

On Aug. 9, 2007, Lansing police discovered the beaten body of 46-year-old Debra Renfors in her apartment in the 1000 block of North Washington Street . Renfors was the third woman to be bludgeoned to death in the city in two weeks, and a grim reality was beginning to set in. Det. Sgt. Joey Dionise confronted Captain Ray Hall , giving voice to a fear that had been bubbling for days. “Captain,” Dionise said, ”We have a serial killer. Years later, Hall still remembers the “sinking feeling” that accompanied that moment. Ten years ago this month, Lansing was in the grip of a killer who preyed on single women, using whatever was convenient to murder them, and, in some instances, sexually assaulting them. Before police caught him, he had killed five women in just over four weeks. A sixth woman would survive. Matthew Emmanuel Macon , then 27, was eventually convicted of two of the murders, and the assault of the surviving victim. When detectives got Macon in an interview room, it would take ...