By Joe Johnson
It was eight years ago today that Daniel Macias was gunned down behind the Athens-Clarke County Courthouse. His death marked the first time that someone had been murdered downtown in over a decade.
The investigation to date has not have yielded results that Daniel’s loved ones have prayed for, but all they need to keep hope alive is to look at how cold case investigators just a few months ago solved a much older case, the 2001 murder of UGA law student Tara Baker.
The Macias murder investigation will hopefully also beat fruit now that it’s in the hands of the county police department’s Cold Case Unit.
Macias, a 28-year-old server at a local restaurant, was the first person to be murdered downtown since James Phillip Cole was shot to death on the sidewalk outside Insomnia nightclub on East Broad Street in 2003.
On the night of August 13, 2016, Christy Rohmer Burrows said her brother-in-law went downtown after working his shift at Agua Linda on Prince Avenue, but not straightaway.
“After working at the restaurant that night, Daniel went to the store across the street and bought beer and then got a phone call from someone and put his beer down and left,” she said. “I don’t think he had plans to go downtown but whomever called him on the phone asked him to meet them so he planned to meet someone downtown. We think that person was his friend Sean, who ended up not meeting Daniel because he had a headlight out. Sean was the friend Daniel was on the phone with right before he was murdered.
“The call was disconnected with Sean at the same time we assume Daniel met his killer on the corner,” Christy said.
Police would not say if they ever interviewed Sean or confirm a report that a witness had overheard some Hispanic males talking about participating in the murder.
According to Christy, a co-worker at Agua Linda noticed that Daniel had seemed stressed and worried about money.
"She said he acted like he owed someone money,” Christy said.
From downtown surveillance camera pool footage, investigators know that Macias was outside the 9d’s Bar on East Clayton Street as it was closing at 2:25 a.m.
He was killed 10 minutes later at the corner of North Jackson Street and East Hancock Avenue, right outside of the sally port for vehicles that transport prisoners to and from the courthouse. He was shot on the sidewalk and collapsed in a bed of landscaping mulch.
There’s a surveillance camera on that corner, but the sally port’s brick wall blocked its view of the shooting.
Police do not believe Macias was randomly killed. He was shot five times at close range, which suggests that the shooter was angered.
“Typically, when it’s a robbery the suspect might shoot the victim once or twice, but Mr. Macias was shot multiple times, indicating the motive might have been more personal,” Police Chief Jerry Saulters said soon after the murder. At the time, he was a captain in charge of the Criminal Investigations Division.
In the immediate aftermath of the murder police released surveillance video camera footage that shows an apparent white male dressed in dark clothing walking on the south sidewalk of East Hancock Avenue toward where Macias was killed.
If the person is not the actual killer, police said there’s
a good chance that he’s a witness who saw Macias and the killer immediately before or at the time of the murder.
Macias was born in South Carolina, but grew up in Alpharetta. In 2007 he enrolled at the University of Georgia, where he majored in business management.
He completed four years at UGA, but was not a student when he was killed. Family members said Daniel fell in love with Athens and decided to remain in town.
At 6-foot-5 and 230 pounds, Erica called her brother a “gentle giant” who had a booming laugh, contagious smile and wonderful sense of humor that made him well known and liked in the downtown Athens nightlife scene.
Detectives may have exhaustively investigated case, but that does not console Teresa Macias.
“We need to get this monster off the street,” said said. “He took my baby, he took somebody’s brother, he took somebody’s uncle.”
“Please, whoever you are, turn yourself in you coward,” she said. “Now that’s truly how I feel. I could go on and on, but with anger.
“Somebody knows something out there,”Teresa continued. “Please help me, I need closure I’m not going to rest until I have closure. Daniel deserves justice and we are going to get it.”
The Macias family is offering a $10,000 reward for information that helps police identify the killer. That is in addition to a Crime Stoppers reward of $1,000.
Anyone with information that might help the investigation is asked to contact Detective Matt Cawthorn at 762-400-7431 or Detective Gary Mitchell at 762-400-7391. Mm Mimi
You can also email to coldcaseunit@accgov.com.
Anyone wishing to remain anonymous can call the confidential Crime Stoppers Tip Line at 706-705-4775. (Reference Case # 16-08-0900).
Jim
Great to hear