Julie Diane Froug Meadows, 47, a mother who lived in the DeKalb County part of Atlanta, was found shot to death in the trunk of her mother's car at Harwell Heights park in northwest Atlanta on the evening of Sunday, December 21, 2008, four days before Christmas. The Atlanta Police Department Homicide Unit investigated.
According to an account posted by people close to her, Meadows was last seen around 12:30 p.m.
on Friday, December 19, 2008, leaving a house-cleaning job off Camp Creek Parkway. When she did not pick up her children, her family knew something was wrong. About 6:30 p.m. on December 21, she was found nude in the trunk of her mother's silver 2004 Chrysler Concorde, parked at the park. She had been shot in the head.
"This is a case we don't see often. She is a victim, a mother who was supposed to pick her kids up but then she was missing for two days," Atlanta police Detective Vince Velazquez told WSB-TV in October 2013. That year, investigators said they had uncovered the DNA of a man they believed was linked to her death, found in connection with the crime and the trunk of the car, and sent the evidence to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation for processing. No suspect has been publicly named, and no reward amount was found.
Her mother, Charlotte Froug, described the moment she learned of her daughter's death. "You don't ever expect anything like that. When I got the call, I couldn't cry. I was just trembling. The tears came later," she said. Julie loved scuba diving, gardening, flowers, cheerleading, travel and golf, according to the memorial page. Her funeral was arranged through Bill Head Funeral Home's Lilburn/Tucker chapel.
Harwell Heights park sits in a residential area of northwest Atlanta, west of downtown. Someone left a car there with her body inside, and residents, park visitors or drivers passing between December 19 and 21, 2008, may have noticed a silver Chrysler Concorde or the person who parked it.
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. Most victims were young men, and the killing of a mother found in a car trunk stood out.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Julie Meadows 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. 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. Anyone who saw Julie Meadows after she left work on December 19, 2008, or who saw her mother's silver Chrysler Concorde that weekend, may be able to help. DNA from the case may still identify her killer. 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.
