Jonesboro Man Drew Shepard Strangles Wife, Calls 911

JONESBORO, Ga. -- A shocking murder confession has left a Clayton County neighborhood shaken up.

Neighbors watched as the suspect, 55-year-old Drew Shepard, was led out of his Jonesboro home in handcuffs. He was jailed on murder charges.

"I still can't believe it. I can't, neighbor Belinda James told Channel 2’s GA Daily News.

On Thursday, Shepard called police and said he strangled his wife after an argument, Clayton County police Capt. Tina Daniel said. Daniel said Shepard’s wife, Aletha, was sitting at a computer when he approached her and attacked.

”He did use his hands, put them around her throat. There was a struggle. She began to fight back. He came from behind, and it appears it was a case of manual strangulation," Daniel said.

The scene contrasts the loving marriage Aletha Shepard depicted on her Facebook page. On the page, she describes herself as loving life, her husband and grandchildren. In her last post, dated Wednesday afteoon, she wrote that she is ”feeling really good.

Neighbors said the attack seemed out of character for Shepard.

"That's not his demeanor at all not to me as a neighbor," James said.

She said Shepard would often give candy to the children at her day care center. She said his wife mainly kept to herself.

"We used to just say, ‘Hey, how are you doing?’ She used to come out every now and then and speak," James remembered.

But the lives of the couple James has lived next to for eight years have changed forever.

"It's a shock," James said

Shepard also pleaded guilty to marijuana and methamphetamine charges in Clayton County in 1993, but his attoey told Jones he did not remember the case.