Robert McGhee was 62 years old when he was killed in Atlanta on Sunday, March 2, 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 Robert McGhee has been made public.
No news story about the killing, obituary, memorial page or family fundraiser could be found for this account. A man of 62 had lived a long life, and he surely had family, old friends and neighbors who remember him, 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.
His age stands out. Most people killed in Atlanta in those years were young men, and a victim in his sixties is far less common. Older victims are sometimes harmed during robberies or by people they know, but nothing has been released to show what happened in his case, and no motive should be assumed.
Robert McGhee is also a common name, and searches for it are dominated by other people, including an Atlanta-area oral surgeon, a television producer in Alabama and men named in unrelated court cases. None of them is the 62-year-old who died in Atlanta in March 2008. The Post's database spells the surname "Mcghee"; this account uses the usual form, McGhee.
The location recorded in the Post's database places his death in west Atlanta, a few miles west of downtown. People who lived in that area in early March 2008, and who may have known an older man in the neighborhood, may remember him and 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 Robert McGhee 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. Neighbors, relatives or friends who knew Robert McGhee and 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.
