Clyde Lewis was 30 years old when he was killed in Atlanta on Thursday, February 7, 2008. The Atlanta Police Department Homicide Unit investigated, 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 Clyde Lewis has been made public.
No news story about the killing, obituary, memorial page or family fundraiser could be confirmed 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 the person who killed him, 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.
Clyde Lewis'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. Being on that list means that, a decade after the killing, the case was still counted among those no one had been arrested for.
Clyde Lewis is also a familiar name for other reasons. Searches are dominated by a nationally syndicated radio host, an Atlanta filmmaker and many obituaries for older men of the same name, none of whom is the 30-year-old who died in Atlanta in February 2008. That crowd of namesakes makes it harder to find any trace of his life and may help explain why his story has been so hard to follow.
The location recorded in the Post's database places his death in southwest Atlanta, south and west of downtown. People who lived in that part of the city in early February 2008 may remember Clyde, and may remember the police activity that followed his death.
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 that period never led to an arrest, and the 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 Clyde Lewis could be found in news archives or public records. More than 18 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who knew Clyde Lewis, saw him in the days before he died, or heard talk afterward of what happened, 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.
