Luke Pope was 75 years old when he was killed in Atlanta on Saturday, January 20, 2007. The Atlanta Police Department Homicide Unit investigated his death, and the Washington Post's homicide database, which tracked killings in Atlanta from 2007 through 2017, lists it as a homicide that remained open with no arrest.
Very little about his death has been made public. Family-placed death notices published in Atlanta in January 2007 record that a Mr.
Luke Pope of Atlanta died on January 20, 2007, the same day as the date in the database, with arrangements first to be announced by Hines Home of Funerals. A second notice listed funeral services for Mr. Luke Pope of Henry Thomas Boulevard S.E. on Thursday, January 25, 2007, at 11 a.m. at Lincoln Memorial Chapel. The notices do not mention how he died, and no news story about the killing could be found.
Because so little has been released, even the basic circumstances remain unknown to the public. The record does not say how he was killed, whether he was attacked indoors or on the street, whether he knew his attacker, what time of day it happened, or whether he died at the scene or later at a hospital. It does not say whether investigators ever identified a suspect.
Luke Pope's name also appears in a 2018 Washington Post investigation that listed thousands of homicide victims across major American cities whose killings had not led to an arrest, meaning the case was still counted among them more than a decade later.
His age stands out. Most people killed in Atlanta in those years were young men, and a man of 75 was far older than the typical victim. Older victims are more often killed at or near home, by someone they know or by someone who sees them as an easy target, but nothing public says which, if either, was true in his case.
The location recorded in the Post's database places his death in southeast Atlanta, south and east of downtown. That fits the S.E. street address given in the January 2007 funeral notice. People who lived or worked in that area at the time may remember the police activity that followed his death, and may know more than they realize about what happened.
Atlanta, the capital of Georgia and the center of a metro area of more than 5 million people, recorded roughly 75 to 130 homicides a year between 2007 and 2017. Most victims in those years were young men, and most were killed with guns. Many killings from those years never led to an arrest, and the Washington Post's 2018 investigation counted Atlanta among the cities with large numbers of unsolved homicides. Cases with few public details, like his, often faded from view quickly.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Luke Pope could be found in news archives or public records. More than 19 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Neighbors on and around Henry Thomas Boulevard in January 2007, and anyone who knew Luke Pope and saw him in the days before he died, may be able to help. Even a small detail, such as a name overheard, a car seen leaving the area or a conversation remembered, can help detectives move a case forward. Anyone with information can call the Atlanta Police Department Homicide Unit at 404-546-4235, or leave an anonymous tip with Crime Stoppers Greater Atlanta at 404-577-TIPS (404-577-8477), which may pay a cash reward for information that leads to an arrest.
