Police: accused killer confessed to strangling West Georgia student

“She was the last person according to cell phone records to talk to and see her, and so that’s what led us to her,” Dobbs told the AJC Friday afternoon. “She gave us a confession, and she led us to Marcy.”

Meanwhile attorney Jason Swindle told reporters just minutes after Strength and another person, Joshua Clay, were denied bond, that she is innocent.

Swindle also told Strength not to conduct any more interviews with investigators – who describe the Strength family as “strange.”

Strength is 29, eight years older than 21-year-old Elliott. Dobbs said the two met at the University of West Georgia and had common interests: psychology and forensics.

“I think that’s where the relationship came from,” Dobbs said.

Dobbs described the two as “really really close friends.”

Investigators aren’t sure what happened after that.

“Something happened where they sort of quit talking and sort of parted ways,” he told the AJC. “They just quit hanging out. This girl (Elliott) was in college, and she went back home … they hadn’t talked in over a year.”

Dobbs said he still doesn’t know what triggered Strength to call Elliott andget her to the Lovvorn Road house about a mile from West Georgia’s campus.

On Friday, no vehicles were in the driveway of the tiny mustard-colored home surrounded by trees and unkempt shrubs where Strength lives with her mother.

Investigators seized a hearse from the home Thursday, however.

Friends say Farrah Strength said she talked to demons.

“I think at one point she was into the gothic-type dress attire and all that … but she doesn’t throw up any red flags,” Dobbs told the AJC of  Strength.

With black eyeliner, several piercings and a tattoo on her forearm, Elliott’s appearance was one that reflected the goth style as well. But friends said while she dressed the part, there was nothing more to it.

“She just liked the style, the clothing. It was a fashion to her,” Cass Carter, a student at the University of West Georgia, told the AJC. “She was a very cheerful and energetic person. She’s not the stereotypical goth. She’s not that person.”

Elliott also kept constant contact with her parents, even calling father David Elliott moments after she arrived in Carrollton last Thursday night.

“She said, ‘I just wanted to let you know I made it OK,'” her father told the AJC Wednesday.

Authorities later found Marcy Elliott’s car parked at a Carrollton apartment complex, and Sailors said she was seen getting out of her car and walking around the back of the building.

As for the Strength family, Carroll County Sheriff’s investigators talk of a history of abuse – a storied past that came to a head on May 8, 2003.

That’s when Farrah Strength’s mother, then-44-year-old Christine, ran up to her father, 43-year-old Jerry with a .38 pistol in one hand and a .357 in the other and began firing.

Investigators said Jerry Strength was hit with at least one bullet from each gun and died at their home.

When Farrah Strength found out that her father was dead, investigators said she had only one word to say.

“Good.”

Christine Strength was not indicted, however, nor did the case ever go to trial, investigators said.

Elliott’s body was found around 11:15 p.m. Wednesday, Dobbs said.

Stength and Clay, 31, were arrested early Thursday.

They are charged with murder, kidnapping and tampering with evidence, Carroll County chief magistrate Alton Johnson said in court Friday.

Strength is also charged with felony murder.

Johnson said the pair would remain in jail until their preliminary hearing at a later date – tentatively scheduled for Aug. 5.

If convicted, they could face life in prison or the death penalty, Johnson said in court.

David Taylor, an assistant district attorney for Carroll County, declined to comment on seeking the death penalty or on any other parts of the case when talking to reporters after the hearing.

Swindle, a private attorney hired to represent Strength and Clay would not comment on Strength’s family, her confession or her state of mind, other than “she’s obviously scared.”

He said the two have met only briefly at this point.

“Once I look into documents, into any sort of history, I’ll file the appropriate motions at that time,” he told reporters.