Raphael Navarete was 30 years old when he was killed in Atlanta on Sunday, June 7, 2009. The Atlanta Police Department investigated his death, 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. The database records him as Hispanic.
Beyond his name, his age and the date of his death, almost nothing about Raphael Navarete has been made public.
No news story about the killing, obituary, memorial page or family fundraiser could be found 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, exactly where it happened, whether he knew the person responsible, or whether he died at the scene or later at a hospital. It does not say whether investigators ever identified a suspect.
Raphael Navarete'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 the case was still counted, years later, among those for which no one had been arrested.
His case also still appears on online cold-case listings. CrimeTea carries his death as an active, unsolved murder in Atlanta, and a crime-mapping site lists him among the area's cold cases, recording his age as 30 and the investigating agency as the Atlanta Police Department.
His name stands out in another way. Navarete is an unusual spelling, and the more common form of the surname is Navarrete, with two r's, so records about him may exist under a different spelling of either his first or last name. If he was a recent arrival or worked in jobs that left little paper trail, his family may have lived far from Atlanta, which can make a case even harder for the public to follow.
The location recorded in the Post's database places his death in southeast Atlanta, southeast of downtown. People who lived or worked in that area in June 2009 may remember Raphael Navarete, and may remember the police activity that followed his death. He was killed on a Sunday in early June, when people are often outside in the evening.
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 those years never led to an arrest, and the Washington 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 Raphael Navarete 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. Anyone who knew Raphael Navarete, who worked or lived with him, or who 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.
