White/Caucasian male Caleb Alexander Witty, age 17, left the Decatur Celebration with his 14-year-old sister late on August 4, 2011, and headed toward home along the 2200 block of East Johns Avenue.
Two people confronted the pair and demanded money. The 17-year-old stepped between the assailants and his sister; gunfire followed, striking him in the arm and chest.
He was pronounced dead just after midnight on August 5, 2011, his death reverberating through a city that had watched the summer festival wind down only hours earlier.
In the days that followed, police appealed for information and Crime Stoppers highlighted the case, with the location and time etched into public memory even as answers proved elusive.
Family, friends, and classmates marked his passing with obituary notices and remembrances while investigators worked a case that had gone quiet, the details, two attackers, a robbery demand, a brother shielding his sister, remaining painfully fixed while leads faded.
Nearly thirteen years later, on June 5, 2024, Decatur police announced arrests. Detectives named two suspects, Michael Isaiah Wallace, 34, of Decatur, and Bobby Lee Gipson, 34, formerly of Decatur and arrested in Tennessee, and charged both with multiple counts of first-degree murder.
Authorities said the renewed push drew on help from the state's attorney, state and federal partners, and members of the community, but did not publicly detail the evidence that led to the breaks in the case.
At the time of the announcement, Wallace was jailed in Macon County and Gipson awaited extradition.
Court proceedings began swiftly.
A judge denied pretrial release for Wallace the next day, citing danger to the public while the case moves toward trial, and prosecutors continued to press the charges that trace back to that late-summer night.
With suspects in custody after so many years, the investigation that once stalled now stands framed by arrests and court dates, even as officials keep the pathway of how they got there largely under wraps.
