Deon Fowles was 27 years old when he was killed in Atlanta on Sunday, June 17, 2007. The Atlanta Police Department 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 Deon Fowles has been made public.
No news story about the killing, memorial page or family fundraiser could be found for this account. He surely had family, friends and neighbors who remember who he was, but little of that has entered the public record.
Because so little has been released, even the basic circumstances remain unknown. The record does not say how he was killed, whether he was attacked indoors or on the street, whether he knew his attacker, or whether he died at the scene or later at a hospital. It does not say whether investigators ever identified a suspect.
Deon Fowles's name also appears in a 2018 Washington Post investigation that listed thousands of homicide victims in major American cities whose killings had not led to an arrest. His name also appears on online cold-case listings that carry the Washington Post record, which give his age as 27, list the cause of death as murder and name the Atlanta Police Department as the investigating agency, but add nothing about what happened.
Deon Fowles is also a name shared by other people, including a teenager killed in a 2016 shooting in Miami-Dade County, Florida, and a man listed in public records in Colorado. None of them is the 27-year-old who died in Atlanta in 2007, and the overlap makes it harder to find any trace of his own story.
The location recorded in the database places his death in south Atlanta, south of downtown. People who lived in that part of the city in June 2007 may remember the police activity that followed, and may know who Deon was and who he spent time with. His death came on a Sunday in early summer, which in 2007 was Father's Day, a day when many families gather and when neighbors are often outside.
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 were young men killed with guns, and many of those killings never led to an arrest. Cases with few public details, like his, often faded from view quickly.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Deon Fowles 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 Deon Fowles, saw him in the days before he died, or heard talk afterward of what happened to him, 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.
