On April 19, 1981, the body of fifteen-year-old Joseph Bell was discovered in the South River near the DeKalb and Rockdale County lines. The body was clothed only in a pair of underwear. Dr. Burton performed the autopsy on Bell's body, and he testified that the body was in a fairly advanced state of decomposition, which was evidenced by partial skeletization of the skull, hands, feet, and chest, by distention of the abdomen, and by several generations of flies and maggots present on the body. Based on the state of decomposition, Burton testified that he thought Bell would have had to have been dead since the early part of March 1981. He testified that, although the condition of the body made measuring and weighing it difficult, he determined that the body was about 5'4" in length, and that Bell would have weighed about 120 pounds when alive.