AR AR/OK/NC - "The Paddler": being the depraved tale of the monster George Kent Wallace (1941-2000)

In three months, the man local police and media nicknamed The Paddler had established himself as Public Enemy No. 1 in the High Point, N.C., area.

Pretending to be a police officer — an added insult to those who wore the badge for real — The Paddler had been luring young boys into his car, driving them to secluded areas and paddling them relentlessly before finally letting them go. By mid-May of 1966, five boys — ranging in age from 11 to 16 — had fallen prey to The Paddler, and law enforcement authorities had little more to show for their efforts than a composite drawing of the suspect, a tentative description of his car, and a growing culture of fear in the communities they had vowed to serve and protect.
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By the time George Kent Wallace was released from prison in 1976, High Point had largely forgotten about his three-month reign of terror as The Paddler a decade earlier.

Wallace, though, had not forgotten.

Nor had he changed. Ten years in prison had done nothing to rehabilitate this man who clearly needed rehabilitation.

If anything, Wallace — sometimes called "The Mad Paddler" — came out of incarceration even madder than he'd been when he entered prison. He would spend the next 14 years in and out of prison for doing exactly what he'd done in High Point: Pretending to be a police officer. Luring adolescent boys into his car. Driving them to secluded areas. Paddling them.

The difference, though, was that Wallace — as he'd begun to do during his 1966 assaults — became even more violent. That night when he punched Thomasville victim Jerry Hazel in the face merely foreshadowed what was to come.
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Watching boys die was nothing new to George Kent Wallace.

He had killed two teenage boys in the Enterprise, N.C., area and gotten away with it. Forsyth County law enforcement officials strongly suspected him in both slayings, but had no physical evidence they could use to prosecute him. And with both boys dead, there were no witnesses to identify him as the assailant.

So in 1986, when Wallace moved to Fort Smith — where he would continue stalking young boys — he didn't merely paddle his victims and let them go, as he had done in High Point in 1966. This time, he killed his prey so there would be no one to identify him.
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Thursday night, Ferguson watched from behind tinted glass as the state Corrections Department pumped lethal drugs into Wallace's veins.

"I wish he could have seen me," Ross Alan Ferguson said. "That would have given me a little satisfaction. Overall, I'm pleased he's dead."
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