Ronald Gadson was 32 years old when he was killed in Atlanta on Wednesday, May 2, 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.
An obituary notice published in a Savannah newspaper appears to refer to him. It reported that Ronald M.
Gadson of Atlanta, 33, died on May 2, 2007, the same date as in the database, and that his funeral would be held at 3 p.m. on a Tuesday at Bostick Funeral Home. The one-year difference in age is a common discrepancy between records. The notice does not say how he died, and no news story about the killing could be found, though a funeral in the Savannah area suggests family ties to coastal Georgia.
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.
Ronald Gadson'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.
At 32, he was a grown man, likely working and perhaps raising children. He was killed on a Wednesday, an ordinary weekday, and someone who expected to see him at work or at home may remember when he did not appear.
The location recorded in the Post's database places his death in the area just south of downtown Atlanta. 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 Ronald Gadson 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 Ronald M. Gadson in Atlanta or in the Savannah area, or who 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.
