Larry Pits was 55 years old when he was killed in Atlanta on Tuesday, January 17, 2017. 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.
Beyond his name, his age and the date of his death, almost nothing about him has been made public.
No news story about his 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, 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 surname is recorded as "Pits." That spelling is unusual, and it is possible that his name was actually Pitts and was shortened or misspelled when the record was made. If so, that small error may have made his story even harder to follow, because searches for "Larry Pits" return mostly unrelated phrases rather than anything about him.
His case does appear in two cold-case listings. SpotCrime's list of metro Atlanta cold cases shows Larry Pits, age 55, as a murder victim in an Atlanta Police Department case, and CrimeTea, an online database of unsolved cases, lists him as an active murder case with a date of January 17, 2017. Neither adds details about what happened.
His age stands out. Most people killed in Atlanta in those years were young men, and at 55 he was much older than most victims. A man of his age would likely have had long ties in his neighborhood and people who knew his habits.
The location recorded in the Post's database places his death in southwest Atlanta, south and west of downtown. People who lived in that area in mid-January 2017 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 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. His death came in the final year covered by the Post's database.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Larry Pits could be found in news archives or public records. More than 9 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who knew Larry Pits or Larry Pitts, saw him in January 2017, 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.
