LAFAYETTE, Ga. — A 63-year-old man has been arrested in Alabama for the 2000 murder of a northwest Georgia woman.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the Walker County Sheriff’s Office announced Friday that they have charged Clerance D. George with murder and aggravated assault in connection with the June 2000 death of Julie Ann McDonald.
McDonald, a pharmacist, was found stabbed to death in her home in LaFayette, Georgia, about 25 miles south of Chattanooga.
At a news conference on Friday, officials said a combination of improved forensic lab technology and traditional police work led them to conclude that George killed McDonald.
Walker County Sheriff Steve Wilson said George was arrested in Birmingham on Aug. 22 and is awaiting extradition to Georgia. George remained in the Jefferson County Jail in Birmingham on Monday and it is unclear if he has an attorney speaking on his behalf.
George was initially identified as one of four or five suspects in the case, GBI special agent Joe Montgomery said, in part because George was found with the McDonald’s checkbook in neighboring Catoosa County.
“It wasn’t a stranger’s crime,” Wilson said. “They knew each other.”
Montgomery would not comment on George’s possible motive for killing McDonald.
Authorities said the case was reexamined in 2015-2016, but that tests on evidence then failed to identify a suspect. The case has been reviewed again in the past two years, with Montgomery saying that lab tests linked evidence to George.
“It’s getting better every day,” Montgomery said of the technology. “It gives us hope that we do have the ability to solve some of the other cases that we couldn’t solve 20 or 30 years ago.”
Wilson said McDonald’s next of kin are a niece and nephew, who have been notified of the arrest.
“We’ve been working on this case for 24 years, but we never give up on these cold cases,” he said.