LUMPKIN COUNTY, Ga. — A North Georgia family is finally getting answers, 24 years after their loved one was beaten to death outside his Lumpkin County apartment.
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Investigators say it was a relentless family member, new DNA technology, and years of persistence that ultimately solved the 2001 murder of 56-year-old Herman Wilder.
Wilder was beaten to death in May 2001 with a wooden stake in front of his apartment. He was transported to Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, where he was pronounced dead.
Wanda Keith remembers her uncle as a quiet, hardworking man.
“He was just quiet. He liked history. He like to read different things like that. He worked hard,” Keith said.
She says the brutality of his death shocked the family.
“The doctors at Grady came in there and told us the same thing, that that was one of the worst beatings they’d ever witnessed, and it was horrible,” Keith said.
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Lumpkin County Sheriff Stacy Jarrard said the case was difficult from the start.
“A lot of the witnesses saw things, but they just could not identify who it was,” Jarrard said.
At one point, a suspect confessed. However, prosecutors later determined that person did not commit the murder.
That’s when Wilder’s great-niece, Christy, who was just 12 years old at the time, made it her mission to find the real killer.
“She said, we’re gonna find him. I said, well, the police will do that. She said, no, we are gonna find them. So she pretty much started when she was 12 years old, and it never ceased,” Keith said.
As Christy grew older, she continued pushing law enforcement for answers.
“You could tell when she got worked up and when she got finished talking to the sheriff or the Lumpkin County Sheriff’s Department. And you could when she was really on a, I guess, a hunch, looking for stuff. She’s very headstrong,” said her husband, Josh Nation.
Captain Alan Roach with the Lumpkin County Sheriff’s Office says he took many of her calls.
“Christie’s calling us and, you know, where y’all at with the case? What have you found? You know, she was very persistent,” Roach said.
Tragically, Christy passed away after a sudden illness before her uncle’s murder was solved.
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Investigators, including Haysley Gibson, continued revisiting the case over the years but repeatedly hit dead ends.
“Then, (in) February, I learned that we sent DNA off to Othram, and we had another avenue for the investigation,” Gibson said.
Othram, a forensic lab in The Woodlands, Texas, uses forensic genetic genealogy to help law enforcement solve cold cases.
“They gave us ideas of what family lines to go look for and people to talk to,” Gibson said.
Armed with that information, Gibson went door to door collecting DNA samples from people in the community.
“So when we would talk to people to get their DNA sample, they were willing to help out,” Gibson said.
In 2023, investigators determined through new DNA testing that Carroll Dean Burrell, who was 41 at the time of the murder, committed the crime. Authorities say Burrell had known delusional and violent tendencies.
Burrell died before investigators could arrest him.
Authorities say the evidence ties Burrell definitively to the DNA found on the murder weapon and on a baseball cap connected to the case.
While there will be no trial, the breakthrough has brought long-awaited closure to Wilder’s family and to investigators.
“I believe that the day that Christy passed away, she got her answer then,” Keith said.
“Don’t give up hope, it takes hard work from the family as well as the police department,” Nation said.
Investigators say solving the case after more than two decades is deeply meaningful.
“It’s one of those days that tugs at your heartstrings because you know you’ve been able to do something for them that no one has been able to do in the last 24 years.”
Carroll Dean Burrell is now deceased and will never face trial. But authorities say the DNA evidence definitively links him to the murder weapon and the baseball cap, finally closing the case after 24 years.
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