Cabocuz Ross was 29 years old when he was killed in Atlanta on Thursday, June 26, 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.
Very little about his life has been made public. A family-placed death notice in the Atlanta paper announced a Celebration of Life for Cabocuz R.
Ross on a Wednesday in July 2008, and a second notice ran with a correction to the arrangements. No news story about the killing, memorial page or family fundraiser could be found for this account.
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 first name is highly unusual, and it appears almost nowhere outside the death notices and homicide lists. The family notice uses the same spelling, so it appears to be his real name rather than a recording error. Friends may have known him by a nickname, which could be one reason so little about him surfaces in searches.
Cabocuz Ross'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. On that list his name appears next to that of Mitchell Anderson, 44, who was killed in Atlanta the following day. Nothing in the public record connects the two deaths. His name and age also appear in cold-case listings for the Atlanta Police Department on a public crime-mapping website.
The location recorded in the Post's database places his death in south Atlanta, near the southern edge of the city several miles below downtown. People who lived in that area in late June 2008 may remember him, 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 Cabocuz Ross 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 Cabocuz Ross, attended his Celebration of Life, 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.
