A 63-year-old man has been detained in Alabama for the 2000 murder of a woman from northwest Georgia. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the Walker County Sheriff’s Office announced on Friday that Clearance D. George had been charged with murder and aggravated assault in the June 2000 death of Julie Ann McDonald.
McDonald, a pharmacist, was discovered stabbed to death in her home in LaFayette, Georgia, approximately 25 miles south of Chattanooga. In a Friday press conference, officials said a mix of improved crime lab technology and traditional police work led them to the conclusion that George killed McDonald.
According to Walker County Sheriff Steve Wilson, George was detained in Birmingham on August 22 and is awaiting extradition to Georgia. George remained in the Jefferson County Jail in Birmingham on Monday, and whether he has a counsel to represent him is unknown.
George was initially identified as one of four or five suspects in the case, according to GBI Special Agent in Charge Joe Montgomery, partly because of his discovery of a McDonald’s checkbook in neighboring Catoosa County. “It was not a strange crime,” Wilson explained. “They knew each other.” Montgomery declined to comment on George’s motive for killing McDonald.
According to the agencies, the case was reinvestigated in 2015-2016. However, no suspect was identified based on evidentiary tests. The case was investigated again during the last two years, and Montgomery stated that lab testing tied evidence to George.
“It’s getting better every day,” Montgomery remarked. “It gives us hope for some of the other cases that we couldn’t solve 20 or 30 years ago; we have that ability now.”
Montgomery went on to say that the breakthrough in the case resulted from not only science but also a lot of hard work by detectives, some of whom have since retired. “It was a lot of leg work and door knocking,” he added. He further explained: “Sometimes they would run into a brick wall, and they kept going.”
According to Wilson, McDonald’s closest remaining relatives are a niece and nephew, who have been told of the arrest. “We’ve been working on this case – it’s 24 years old, and we never give up on these cold cases,” remarked the judge.
