Wayne Alexander, a 66-year-old man from Cleveland, Georgia, was living alone on his property in poor health when the events that led to his death began to unfold in early August 2016. Court records later described how Frederick Sauder, along with Justin Edward Davis and others in his circle, had been around a neighboring farm and focused on Alexander’s mobile home.
On August 4, Sauder and Davis went to the home armed with a shotgun and tools, forced their way in, and robbed Alexander of firearms. In the days that followed, some of those stolen guns were traded at a pawn shop for a. 22-caliber semiautomatic rifle. Alexander was still alive on August 9, when his estranged wife, Melita, spoke with him by phone that afternoon. By August 10, he was dead, shot inside his residence on Sam Craven Road, and the killing left White County investigators trying to piece together how a robbery had turned into a murder.
The investigation moved quickly after that. Authorities arrested Frederick Sauder on August 17, 2016, at the Travel Inn in Athens after what reports described as a short standoff. The White County Sheriff’s Office, the GBI, and U.S. Marshals were involved in the arrest, and prosecutors soon said the evidence linked Sauder to both the robbery and the later shooting. A grand jury indicted him on malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault, burglary, and firearm charges. Justin Edward Davis was also indicted in connection with the same case, facing charges that included armed robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Later, according to the district attorney, Davis entered a plea, which led prosecutors to remove him from a later indictment against Sauder and adjust the charging language. Reporting after Sauder’s trial said Davis had pleaded guilty earlier and was awaiting sentencing at that point.
What emerged at trial was a grim picture of a vulnerable man targeted first for what he owned and then silenced forever. The Georgia Supreme Court’s summary of the evidence said witnesses placed Sauder at Alexander’s property during the robbery and again at the time of the shooting, and the rifle used to kill Alexander was later found hidden under a mattress in Sauder’s motel room. Prosecutors also presented evidence that Sauder possessed coins and other property taken from Alexander and Melita after the killing, and that he had made statements suggesting he wanted to get rid of Alexander. In February 2019, a White County jury found Sauder guilty. Judge Stan Gunter sentenced him to life in prison for malice murder plus 35 additional years for armed robbery and firearm-related counts. The district attorney said most of the more than 250 items of evidence introduced at trial had been stolen from Alexander’s home. Sauder later appealed, but in April 2024 the Supreme Court of Georgia left the murder conviction and most of the sentence intact, correcting only a merger error on one firearm count. In the end, the case closed not with mystery but with a record showing robbery, a return to the victim’s home, a fatal shooting, one suspect convicted of murder, and a second suspect who admitted guilt in the broader crime through a plea.
