Devoy Hamilton was 46 years old when he was killed in Atlanta on Wednesday, December 18, 2013, one week before Christmas. The Atlanta Police Department 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.
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, whether he was attacked indoors or on the street, whether he knew his attacker, 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 family did place a short death notice in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. It said Mr. Devoy Hamilton passed on December 18, 2013, and that his service would be announced by Alfonso Dawson Mortuary, a funeral home on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive in southwest Atlanta. The mortuary's own listings for December 2013 also include his name and date of death. No fuller obituary describing his life, work or survivors could be found.
His case is also listed as an active murder on CrimeTea, an online database of unsolved cases, under the city of Atlanta. That listing adds no new details, but it shows that the case was still counted as unresolved years later.
Devoy is an uncommon first name, which makes his records easier to separate from other people's than in many cases. Even so, almost nothing about who he was has reached the public. A man of 46 would likely have had family, friends and perhaps children who remember him, and the timing of his death, in the days before the holidays, would have made it all the harder for them.
The location recorded in the Post's database places his death in west Atlanta, well west of downtown on the city's Westside. People who lived in that area in December 2013 may remember the police activity that followed his death, or may have known him.
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 Devoy Hamilton could be found in news archives or public records. More than 12 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who knew Devoy Hamilton, saw him in the days before Christmas 2013, 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.
