39-year search for missing Michigan teen could end in Georgia grave

Nearly 40 years ago, Anthony Strickland watched as the body of an unidentified teen was lowered into an unmarked grave on Macon’s south side.

Strickland, a young Bibb County sheriff’s deputy in 1979, was summoned while on patrol to be a witness for a Christian burial in a pauper’s grave in Evergreen Cemetery.

Tuesday, Strickland was back at the grave as a trackhoe dug for the boy’s remains in an attempt to finally identify him.

The young man had been killed instantly when he was hit by a tractor trailer while hitchhiking on Interstate 75 about four miles south of Macon.

They boy’s untimely death on Valentine’s Day, Feb. 14, 1979, and the fact that no one could find his family haunted Strickland even after he retired in 2000 as a junior lieutenant in the investigations division.

“Time progressed and I felt somebody’s got to be missing this kid. Somebody’s got to be loving this kid,” said Strickland, who has children of his own.

The teen had 30 Clark candy bars and a half-dozen pieces of taffy on him, but no identification.

His fingerprints didn’t match any in the national data base and Coroner A.R. King eventually arranged for the publicly funded burial in one of the city’s cemeteries.

Before ground was broken again at the back end of the burial spot off Houston Road, Bibb sheriff’s chaplain Chip Strickland, no relation, offered a prayer.

“Lord we pray that this be the young man we think it is so that we may return him to his family,” the pastor of Riverside United Methodist Church prayed.

In the semi-circle of law enforcement, prosecutors and Dr. Rick Snow, a forensic pathologist with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Michigan State Police Sgt. Larry Rothman bowed his head.

In December, Rothman had exhausted all the avenues in a cold case of a missing 15-year-old from Addison, Michigan, about 25 miles north of the Ohio line.

Rothman took over the case in 2014 after Greer’s relatives had gone to the media, hoping a story on the missing teen could lead to his whereabouts.

“I think everybody that does this job, there’s certain cases that kinda stick with you,” Rothman said during his first trip to Georgia. “This case kinda stuck with me early on.”

Rothman initially had trouble finding any paper trail. He later discovered the unsolved case had been closed for years.

Nothing had ever been entered into National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, known as NamUs.

Rothman added him to the database, talked with Drew’s parents and secured DNA samples from both of them.

He learned the 15-year-old likely hitchhiked down Interstate 75, headed for Key West, Florida.

Greer’s father, his namesake, passed away in 2015, still not knowing what happened to his boy.

Drew’s mother died in 2017.

In December, Rothman was putting the case binder on the shelf, preparing to mark it inactive when he decided to pray.

“Asking God, if you want this solved, you’re going to have to do it because I’ve done everything I could do,” he said.

Back in Georgia around that same time, Strickland got on his computer as he did every few years to try to find out who was buried in that unmarked grave.

Over the years, he’d checked with the FBI, but found nothing.

This time, Strickland came upon a website listing runaways from across the country.

Each one had the date they went missing.

When looking for February of 1979, Andrew Greer’s name jumped out at him. He disappeared from Michigan just two days before the teen was killed down South.

“I looked at a map and I could see easily how he could have made it to 75,” Strickland said.

Now that he had a name, the retiree went searching for paperwork and hit the jackpot.

He found Rothman’s contact information and called him Feb. 12, exactly 39 years to the day after Greer disappeared.

Both law enforcement officers had been dogged by the mystery and witnessed the exhumation together.

They watched as each pile of dirt could be bringing them closure to an answer.

As current Bibb County sheriff’s deputies circled the grave, fatality investigator Cpl. Justin Krage spoke of Strickland’s due diligence and dedication that brought them to the brink of solving both cases 785 miles apart.

“I would personally like to thank you. Hopefully we can get a family some answers,” Krage said.

About three hours after officers first gathered at the grave, the teen’s remains were headed to the GBI Crime Lab.

It will take weeks, or months to receive DNA test results, Snow said.

Strickland’s nearly 40-year quest could be coming to an end.

“I”m glad to be here today,” he said. We’ve still got a ways to go, but in my heart he’s here. He’s headed home.”

This story was originally published April 17, 2018 at 2:05 PM with the headline "39-year search for missing Michigan teen could end in Georgia grave."