Baby Kelsey at 29: 'I'm so much stronger than this story'
She was only a child when someone murdered her parents in Athens in 1994. Kelsey would become the subject of a dramatic custody battle involving the prime suspect in those murders. The case is still unsolved.
ATHENS, Ga. - An unsolved double murder. An orphaned trust fund baby. And decades later, proof that the road to a happy ending is rarely straight and smooth.
In 1995, shortly after I joined the FOX 5 I-Team, we received a fascinated tip that ultimately took us to courthouses in two states, an investigation that would last years. And a story that would stay with me for the rest of my career.
As most do, it started with a tragedy.
In January 1994, someone murdered Genelle Helms and Robbie Bryant in their Athens duplex.
The crime scene was unusual. Police found no signs of forced entry. Nothing stolen. At least nine .38 caliber slugs were recovered, two of them shot through a pillow held over Genelle’s head.
Authorities believed the couple knew their killer and were taken by surprise. Whoever did it even locked the door on their way out.
Billie Mack Devine was considered the prime suspect in the murders of Kelsey's parents. He was also convicted of stealing from her trust fund, a case that was overturned on a technicality.
At the time, the couple’s only child, 9-month-old Kelsey, was visiting relatives in Tampa, Florida. She was staying in the home of Billie Mack Devine, her great uncle who also happened to be having money problems.
Devine controlled a trust fund worth more than $200,000 set up for Kelsey’s mother Genelle. But court records revealed he spent much of her money on himself, paying off credit card bills and making risky investments like with a company that searched for sunken treasure.
Devine also took out a $200,000 life insurance policy on Genelle, naming Kelsey as the beneficiary.
Now that Genelle was dead, all that money including the trust funds belonged to Baby Kelsey.
When Devine returned to Georgia for the funerals, he left Kelsey behind in Florida. Afterward, he stopped at the Clarke County Courthouse to file a will supposedly signed by Genelle, a will that named him Kelsey’s guardian.
"While I was waiting for him to go talk to the police, he was at the probate court filing the will," said Rick Bryant, Robbie’s brother.
Devine controlled a trust fund set up for Genelle Helms. When she was murdered, the fund went to her daughter Kelsey. But the child would never see any of that money.
After the deaths, a Clarke County Grand Jury indicted Devine for theft and perjury in connection to the trust fund. But he would be suspected in a much larger crime.
Devine was named in court papers as the main suspect in the murders of Kelsey’s parents.
"Money’s always a motive in murder," said Assistant District Attorney Rick Dickson at the time.
Kelsey had yet to meet her father’s relatives in Watkinsville. But Rick and Diane Bryant realized in 1995 they had to do something.
"We’re the only people that can straighten this out for her," said Diane back then. "I mean, how can a child be raised by the man that plotted to, and we feel succeeded in murdering her parents?"
They decided to seek custody of Kelsey.
Devine admitted being in Athens around the time of the murders. An accomplished martial arts instructor, Robbie was considering opening a training academy. The terms of Genelle's trust allowed her to use those funds to start a business.
But with nothing more than circumstantial evidence linking him to the murders, Devine was never charged. Through his Athens attorney Ed Tolley, Devine denied any involvement.
Tolley would argue it was in essence child abuse to take Kelsey away from the only family she had ever really known and hand her to a couple she had never met.
"The child initially was too young to know the difference but now has lived with Mack and Shirley for over a year," Tolley told FOX 5 in 1995. "I think it would be so traumatic for the child. I’m not sure she could ever recover from it."
The dramatic decision unfolded in a Tampa courthouse. Judge Peter Taylor handed each family a copy of his decision, then sat back in his chair and quietly watched as each side raced through the pages to see who would get Kelsey.
The Bryants got to the last page first, and with tears hugged each other. They had won.
Taylor ordered Kelsey turned over immediately.
The Bryants scooped her up, caught the first plane back to Georgia and ultimately adopted the 2-year-old. Kelsey Bryant would grow up alongside her birth parents’ dog, her dad’s horse and her cousin’s love.
A storybook ending yes. If only the story had ended there.
A 1996 Christmas photo of Kelsey still pinned up at my desk.
Shortly after the adoption, the Bryants mailed me a Christmas photo of Kelsey. I still have it at my desk all these years later, pinned up with art from my own daughters who are roughly Kelsey’s age. I often wondered how she was doing.
This month, the FOX I-Team got to meet her again. She’s working with Classic City Crime podcaster Cameron Jay to raise awareness about her birth parents’ unsolved murders.
"I was so surprised when he came to me," she said. "I was surprised that people still cared."
Kelsey is now 29. Still living in Georgia and, in a way, still living with the past.
"I’ve struggled with emotional issues for the better part of my life," she admitted. "And now that I’m an adult, and I’m choosing to be in therapy, it’s something I’m actually able to work on rather than being a kid and being forced to be in therapy because you’re not acting right."
Baby Kelsey at 29.
She remembers the Bryants gently trying to explain her past when she was younger. But then one day she discovered an old VHS tape, filled with all our old stories.
"I couldn’t have been more than like nine," Kelsey remembered. "I was looking for a movie to watch on my VCR in my room and I came across this tape and I watched it by myself and then I had to go to my parents like what is this?"
She started therapy in the first grade. Hospitalized at 12.
She would struggle through adolescence and drop out of high school, eventually earning her degree from a therapeutic boarding school out of state.
An ill-advised marriage ended quickly. She finally moved away from the temptations of Athens.
With a new job, new home and steady therapy, she thinks she’s finally on the right track.
"I don’t think my parents’ dying or being moved from Billie Mack Devine’s house to the Bryants’ house had nearly as much of an effect on me as just … the trauma of growing up," she said.
In 1996, a Georgia jury convicted Devine of stealing from the trust fund. He was ordered to pay back Kelsey. But the case was thrown out on a technicality. Kelsey never received any of her money.
A Georgia jury eventually convicted Devine of stealing from that trust fund. But the conviction was overturned on a technicality. Billie Mack Devine was never retried. He never went to prison.
And Kelsey never got any of her money.
She said the Devines broke off all contact after she was taken back to Georgia.
"I’ve never gotten a letter from them or anything," she said. "I don’t know who they are. They’re just part of the story."
Devine is now 77 and still living in Tampa. He and his wife Shirley did not respond to our repeated attempts for comment.
"We are still actively working the case," said Athens-Clarke County Police Lieutenant David Norris, who also confirmed Devine remains a suspect.
Kelsey Bryant believes police got it right in 1995 when they named her great uncle as the prime suspect in the murders of her birth parents.
Kelsey believes Devine murdered her parents, but even if the podcast doesn’t produce new leads, she said it won’t be the deciding factor for her emotional health.
"Of course, it would be ideal to have a conviction," she said. "But I know the truth."
As for the Bryants, they’ve since retired and moved to Costa Rica. In an email, the couple said "raising (Kelsey) included some very difficult times but many fun and joyful times as well. We have absolutely no regrets and would do the same thing again."
"I think Rick and Diane, their heart was really in the right place," said Kelsey. "They really wanted to make sure Robbie’s daughter had a good home. I appreciate everything that they’ve done for me."
The Bryants also hope renewed interest in the murders will generate new leads.
"After all these years we still hope justice will come," they said.
And what about the prediction from attorney Tolley more than 25 years ago, that Kelsey might never recover from being taken away from the Devines?
"I’ve recovered," she insisted. "I’m an individual person. I’m so much stronger than this story."
If you have information about this case, call Athens-Clarke County Police Detective Gary Mitchell at 762-400-7101.