Ronald Whitman Jr. was 32 years old when he was killed in Atlanta on Friday, May 23, 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. A cold-case listing gives May 23, 2008, as the date his body was found.
A short death notice published in the Atlanta paper identified him as Ronald A.
Whitman Jr., 32, of Conyers, and said he died May 22, a day earlier than the date in the database. The difference suggests he may have died the day before he was found. A memorial service was held at 11 a.m. at Collins Funeral Home on the day the notice ran in June 2008.
Beyond those details, almost nothing has been made public. No news story about the killing could be found, and the record does not say how he was killed, where exactly his body was discovered, whether he knew his attacker, or whether investigators ever identified a suspect.
Conyers, in Rockdale County, lies about 25 miles east of Atlanta. Why a man who lived there ended up in southwest Atlanta, and who he was with, are questions the public record does not answer. Friends from Conyers may know where he was going or whom he planned to meet in his final days.
Ronald Whitman Jr.'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. An online cold-case site also lists his death as an active murder case in Atlanta.
The location recorded in the Post's database places his death in southwest Atlanta, several miles from downtown. People who lived in that area around the Memorial Day weekend of 2008 may remember the police activity that followed the discovery.
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.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Ronald Whitman Jr. 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 Ronald Whitman Jr. in Conyers or Atlanta, 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.
