Craig Bagley was 57 years old when he was killed in Atlanta. The Washington Post's homicide database, which tracked killings in Atlanta from 2007 through 2017, records his death on Monday, October 15, 2012, and lists it as a homicide that remained open with no arrest. The Atlanta Police Department investigated.
Few details about his death have been made public. No news story about the killing could be found for this account.
The record does not say how he was killed, where exactly he was found, whether he knew his attacker, what time it happened, or whether he died at the scene or later at a hospital. It does not say whether investigators ever identified a suspect.
A published obituary appears to describe him. It says Craig Allan Bagley, 57, of East Point, died on October 14, 2012, and that a memorial service would be held at 3 p.m. on a Sunday at Carmichael-Hemperley Funeral Home in East Point. The age and the timing match the Post's record closely; the one-day difference in the date may reflect a late-night attack or a death recorded after midnight, but the sources do not say.
Beyond that notice, his life is largely absent from the public record. East Point is a small city on Atlanta's southwest edge, and a man who had lived there into his late 50s would likely have had family, neighbors, co-workers and friends who knew him well. None of their memories of him could be found online.
His age stands out. Most people killed in Atlanta in those years were young men, and at 57 he was much older than most victims. Nothing has been released about what happened in his case.
The location recorded in the Post's database places his death in southwest Atlanta, south of downtown and not far from East Point. The exact same map coordinates are recorded for the death of Donald Lott, 52, on September 27, 2012, less than three weeks earlier. The database does not explain why, and it may reflect how locations were entered rather than any link between the two deaths.
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 of those killings never led to an arrest, and the Washington Post's 2018 investigation of unsolved homicides counted Atlanta among the cities with large numbers of them. Cases with few public details, like his, often faded from view quickly.
The Post database itself was built for a 2018 investigation of unsolved killings in major American cities. Being listed there means that, years after the killing, the case was still counted among those for which no one had been arrested.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Craig Bagley could be found in news archives or public records. More than 14 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who knew Craig Bagley in East Point or Atlanta, saw him in mid-October 2012, 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.
