Ronnie Hill was 46 years old when he was killed in Atlanta on Friday, November 28, 2008. It was the day after Thanksgiving. 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 Ronnie Hill has been made public.
No news story about the killing, memorial page or family fundraiser could be found for this account. A family-placed death notice in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 2008 announced a celebration of life service for a Mr. Ronnie Denard Hill of Atlanta, but the available portion does not give an age or date of death, so it could not be confirmed that it refers to the same man. 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.
Ronnie Hill is a common name, and searches for it are dominated by other people. They include a Florida robbery suspect killed in a 2019 shootout after a UPS truck hijacking, a professional baseball player and men named in obituaries in several states. None of those people is the 46-year-old who died in Atlanta in November 2008, and none of those cases has anything to do with his death.
His case does not appear on the 2018 Washington Post list of unsolved homicides published online, but the Post's underlying database still records it as open with no arrest. No cold-case listing, reward offer or public appeal for information could be found.
The location recorded in the database places his death on the city's Westside, west of downtown. Two other men, Raphael Crumbley and Demetrius Holt, were killed within about a mile and a half of that spot in the following ten days, and their cases also remain open. Nothing in the public record links the three deaths, but the cluster shows how violent that part of the city was in late 2008.
His age stands out. At 46, he was far older than most homicide victims of that era, and his death on a holiday weekend means that relatives who had gathered for Thanksgiving may have been among the last to see him.
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.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Ronnie Hill could be found in news archives or public records. More than 17 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who knew Ronnie Hill, spent Thanksgiving 2008 with him, 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.
