Martin Garcia-Tellez was 35 years old when he was killed in Atlanta on Saturday, April 21, 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.
Beyond his name, his age and the date of his death, almost nothing about Martin Garcia-Tellez has been made public.
No news story about the killing, obituary, memorial page or family fundraiser could be found for this account. He surely had family, friends and neighbors who remember who he was, but none of that has entered the public record.
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.
Martin Garcia-Tellez'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 case also appears on online cold-case lists that record it as an active Atlanta Police Department murder case.
He was one of relatively few Hispanic homicide victims in Atlanta that year. A man of 35 may have been working in construction, landscaping, restaurants or other trades, and he may have had family in Georgia or in another country who waited for news. If relatives lived abroad or spoke little English, it may have been harder for them to press for answers, and harder for reporters to tell his story.
The location recorded in the Post's database places his death in far southwest Atlanta, near the city's southwestern edge. 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 Martin Garcia-Tellez 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. Anyone who knew Martin Garcia-Tellez, worked with him or shared a home with him in April 2007 may be able to help, including people more comfortable speaking Spanish. 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.
