CRIME SPREE SUSPECT CHARGED IN SLAYING, SEX ASSAULTS

Atlanta man on trial for multiple rapes, murder.

With every allegation from the prosecutor’s lips came a response from the courtroom gallery.

A grunt, a sign, a moan — utter disgust at tales of the zip ties carried by the “serial rapist and murderer,” the black bandannas stuffed in victims’ mouths, the pictures taken of dark moments in DeKalb and Fulton counties.

One woman got up and fled the courtroom.

DeKalb prosecutor Dalia Racine revealed the details Wednesday during a hearing for suspect Terique Hall, 24, of Atlanta.

Racine repeatedly called Hall a “serial rapist.” The deputy chief assistant district attorney detailed a nineday spree in early November in which Hall allegedly committed three rapes, one attempted rape and the murder of a 20-year-old pregnant woman.

Hall tried to video himself suffocating the hog-tied woman, Ashley Mays, in her room at a motel outside Lithonia, the prosecutor said.

Hall, who worked driving seniors and the disabled to MARTA stops before his arrest last month, asked for Wednesday’s hearing. He wanted a judge to let him bond out of the DeKalb County jail.

Judge Winston Bethel took only seconds to deny the request.

Racine said the victims had all advertised escort services on a website. The string of assaults got concerning enough that, while police were searching for the suspect, they called escorts on the site just to warn them.

Michael Mays, father of the deceased, said his daughter was adrift. The woman, whose fetus didn’t survive, believed past blemishes on her record made prospects of legitimate work few.

A long-haul trucker, Mays, 44, had to work Wednesday and couldn’t attend the hearing.

“For the first few weeks it was bad,” he said from the cab of his truck in Louisiana. “The only reason I’m handling it now is I’m back driving the truck. Every once in a while I drift and cry.”

But he wants to hear the details of what happened to his daughter and her unborn child. He’s hoping the case might help spread the word to young women about the dangers of such websites.

As Racine told it, the dangers played out grimly for the four women Hall met last month.

The first victim said she was assaulted on Nov. 9 at an East Point hotel.

On Nov. 11, at a townhome near Lithonia, Hall allegedly poured bleach on a woman after raping her and told her she was “lucky” he didn’t also have rubbing alcohol. The combination would’ve made chloroform.

Three days later, a pimp overheard a prostitute scream during an attempted rape at a motel in the Northlake area. The pimp shot the attacker’s car as he fled, Racine said.

Ashley Mays, who was 4 months pregnant and leaves behind a 3-year-old, died Nov. 18. The prosecutor said Hall’s cellphone contained a picture of Mays bound and gagged.

Authorities are waiting for a report from a doctor to decide whether to charge him with the death of the fetus.