Last Monday was a big day. I had jury duty in Fayette. I wasn’t picked for a case. Imagine that.

We also had a grand jury in Pike County. During a recess in the Fayette jury selection, I ran down to Zebulon to speak to the grand jurors. I always enjoy that.

But the biggest news came from Spalding County. A jury returned a verdict in a murder case. The murder had occurred in 2000. A hobo trudging through the high grass along Interstate 75 nearly stumbled over the body lying near the pavement. The DA before me had decided the evidence was too weak to present the case to a grand jury. We worked very hard with the Spalding County Sheriff’s investigators and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and put together a case we could try. Randy Coggin, my Chief Assistant District Attorney, prosecuted.

There were many obstacles to overcome. Several of our witnesses were nomadic and hard to find. Others lived in a ghetto in DeKalb County and didn’t want to cooperate. Tammy Hotchkiss, one of our investigators in the Spalding office, worked miracles tracking down witnesses and getting them to court. Other witnesses lived out of state and had to be transported here for the trial.

But, the biggest obstacle was that a Nazi skinhead in an Arizona prison confessed to the murder. A murder he didn’t really commit. The defense wanted him to testify so that the real killer could go free. The skinhead, who had been in lockdown 23 hours each day, wanted a field trip to Georgia.

We discovered a letter from the skinhead to the real killer. “Where did I shoot her? What type of gun did I use? What did I do with the body? I’ll need $5,000.00 up front and another $5,000.00 later.” We also discovered that the skinhead had “confessed” to three other murders he didn’t really commit.

So, Randy prosecuted an eight year old murder case that my predecessor had refused to indict. He didn’t know which witnesses would appear and couldn’t be sure that they would cooperate if they did appear. And he had to overcome the confession of a third party. Impossible? Not for Randy Coggin. The jury convicted the real killer and Judge Chris Edwards sentenced him to life plus five years in prison.

I wonder if the murderer will get his $5,000.00 back?