Lacey Police arrest homicide suspect in Georgia cold case
Lacey Police arrested a man wanted in a 17-year-old homicide cold case out of Georgia, according to a press release from the Gwinnett County Police Department. Gwinett County is northeast of Atlanta, in north-central Georgia.
Officers arrested the man on the 400 block of Carpenter Road Wednesday about 4:30 p.m., Lacey Police Sgt. Shannon Barnes told The Olympian. The suspect was being held at Thurston County jail as of Thursday, she said.
According to the department’s press release, the Gwinnett County Sheriff’s Office will arrange the suspect’s extradition.
The suspect had been staying in Lacey, Barnes said, but it was unclear how long he’d been there.
The 43-year-old man was wanted in the 2002 homicide of a man named Weldon Mills, according to the press release.
Mills, who was 30, was found dead with a gunshot wound to the back of his neck in an apartment-complex parking lot in Norcross, Georgia, on Sept. 20, 2002, according to the release. No suspects were charged in the case.
The supervisor of the department’s Cold Case Unit revisited the case last year and investigators interviewed witnesses in several states, according to the release, some of whom hadn’t been interviewed in the case before.
Through those interviews, the department established probable cause to charge the man in Lacey with felony murder and aggravated assault, the release reads.
The man lived a “very transient lifestyle” according to a spokesperson for the department, and it’s unclear to police where he’s been living for the last 17 years.
Police believe the motive was drug-related, and that the victim’s family didn’t know the suspect.
The Olympian generally does not name suspects before they appear in court.
This story was originally published March 26, 2020 at 1:54 PM.
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