Woman Pleads Guilty/Mentally Ill After Bizarre Cobb Crime Spree

MARIETTA, GA -- A Texas woman has been sentenced to prison after pleading guilty but mentally ill to a bizarre string of crimes that resulted in an elderly woman’s death. Shortly after 5 am on May 11, 2016, Kristie Renee Nesby was driving a 2006 Ford Five Hundred and approached the owner of a cleaning company as he finished his morning routine at a business in Smyrna. She produced a handgun, ordered the man to the ground, and demanded his wallet and car keys.

Shortly afterward, Nesby was driving on I-575 at a high rate of speed when she struck another vehicle. Nesby fled that scene, then traveled the wrong direction up the southbound exit ramp, striking a second vehicle and again failing to stop.

A few minutes after 6 am, Nesby was on Cobb Parkway near Bells Ferry Road when she drove off the roadway and onto a sidewalk, striking pedestrian Luci Turner, 71, who was walking to her job at Burger King. Turner later died of her injuries.

Nesby then hijacked a vehicle being driven by a female on Bells Ferry Road. Nesby fled toward I-75 and hijacked a second vehicle and, still armed with a handgun, robbed another woman of her cell phone.

While driving to Atlanta, Nesby called 911 and told the operator that she would take a hostage and then kill both the hostage and herself unless police chased her with blue lights and stopped her. She said someone had put something into the air that was affecting her organs, and she also stated that an employee of a fast food restaurant had put something in her drink the night before that was causing her to hallucinate and commit these crimes.

Ultimately, after Nesby crashed into numerous vehicles on North Avenue in Atlanta, she went off the roadway and struck landscape that immobilized the vehicle she was driving. Nesby then attempted but failed to hijack yet another vehicle. When Nesby was arrested, investigators found that she was armed with two handguns throughout her crime spree.

Nesby’s blood tested negative for any drugs and alcohol.

Last Wednesday, Nesby entered a plea of guilty but mentally ill to 10 charges, including homicide by vehicle, armed robbery, hijacking a motor vehicle, hit and run, aggravated assault, and possessing a firearm during commission of a felony.

Evidence from mental health experts who evaluated Nesby was presented to the court during the hearing. Prosecutors and defense attorneys asked the court to find that Nesby was mentally ill and to determine that although Nesby may have been experiencing delusional compulsions that overmastered her will, the delusional compulsions, if real, would not have justified her unlawful acts.

Cobb Superior Court Judge Stephen Schuster accepted Nesby’s plea and then sentenced her to 55 years, with 20 years to serve in prison without parole, and the balance on probation. Nesby will receive mental health treatment in prison.

Nesby had been scheduled to go to trial in this case on Oct. 15.

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