Carlton Gary was born in 1952 and soon showed signs of very high intelligence. But instead of being nurtured and becoming a normal member of society he was malnourished and abused. By his late teems he was a heavy drug user with arrests for robbery, arson, and assault. Continuing down his grim path, a series of murders focused on old women coincided with Gary's arrival in Albany, New York, in 1970. Eventually arrested for one of the killings Gary managed to lay blame on an accomplice, though he admitted being present at the scene, and was sent to prison on burglary charges. John Lee Williams was convicted of murdering the woman, based in part on Gary's testimony, and was sent to prison. He was later released when Gary recanted years later.

Gary escaped Onondaga County Correctional Institution in August, 1977, and went home to Colombus, Georgia. Less than a monthy later he beat, raped and killed Ferne Jackson, 60, and over the next seven months killed six more elderly women in similar fashion. He also left his calling card at the crime scenes, one of the victims own stockings was always left knotted tightly around their necks. The media soon dubbed the unknown slayer "The Stocking Strangler" for obvious reasons.

Authorities were in a pressure cooker because of the racial ramifications of the crimes. Evidence showed the killer was black, which proved to be true, and all the Colombus victims were white. Adding to the difficult situation was William Hance, another black serial killer stationed at nearby Fort Benning, who was posing as a white radical group called "The Forces of Evil" in letters to police. Hance threatened that the fictitious group would begin killing black women if The Strangler was not stopped. One of the letters also named a woman who was supposedly being held by The Forces but Hance actually had already killed the Colombus prostitute. Though it was all a concocted to draw attention away from his own killings, in the end it basically accomplished just the opposite and Hance was apprehended.

Meanwhile Gary was finally jailed on armed robbery charges in late 1978 but managed to escape yet again in 1983 having never been formally accused in his serial killings. He managed to elude police until May 5, 1984, when he was nabbed in Albany, Georgia and charged with three of the Colombus killings. Gary was found guilty and sentenced to death. He was never charged with any of the Albany, New York slayings.