TROUP COUNTY, Ga. — Part of a decades-old mystery has now been solved: Investigators say the remains found along West Point Lake in 1990 have been identified, but now the case is being considered a cold case murder.
Craig Alexander Maddox was identified last month as the man found dead 36 years ago along the lake.
His adult son helped solve the mystery with a simple search of DNA, hoping to find his father, Channel 2’s Karyn Greer learned.
“It seems like there’s some light at the end of the tunnel, as far as we have answers. As of yesterday, I finally know where he is,” said his son, Duston Maddox.
The murky waters of West Point Lake had been hiding a secret along the shoreline in March 1990. A body in an advanced stage of decomposition washed up along the shore, with faded tattoos and a belt buckle the only clues for investigators.
“The medical examiner says it could have been in the water for up to 120 days, but it was during a cold time of year, and the water hadn’t gotten good and warm yet, so that preserved the body to an extent,” said Clay Bryant, the cold case investigator for the Troup County Sheriff’s Office.
Bryant was assigned the case in 2025.
“On his back, from shoulder to shoulder, was a huge tattoo of a guy doing cocaine off a spoon, and it was very unique,” he said.
Dustin Maddox was an infant living with his mother in Arkansas when his father disappeared.
It wasn’t until he decided to search for him by using DNA that he learned he wasn’t just missing, he had been murdered.
His father was living with his uncle at the time in Douglassvile.
“I did a DNA profile with Ancestry about five years ago, but nothing ever happened. And he said, well, that’s because I can’t search it. But he was able to tell me, give me some instructions on how to download from there, upload to get match. And then about 15 minutes, he messaged me back and said, it was a parent-child match,” he said.
“He had gotten depressed and told everybody in the family he was going to go start a new life, remarkably ending one. He was definitely a victim of a homicide, not a suicide,” his son said.
Dustin says his dad was 25 when he was killed, and he is now planning a trip to Georgia to get his remains or have a proper burial while investigators begin their search for his killer.
“I think that out of all the things I could tell him, I would tell him that I’m sorry. I’m sorry that he was robbed of so much of his life,” he said.
Bryant says Maddox was shot twice in the head. Part of his body is buried in an unmarked grave.
Now, 36 years later, investigators are working to find out who killed the young father and why.
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