‘Justice and closure.’ How a team of retired investigators is helping solve GA cold cases

A group of retired GBI agents has returned to work in their free time to help solve more than 530 cold cases statewide dating back to the 1970s.

In 2020 retired agent Chris Tolbert returned to the GBI to assemble the group of former agents. The team consists of two trios and Tolbert, who takes a final look at each case before recommending it to the local GBI office.

Vic Reynolds, the director of the GBI, was able to carve out enough in its budget to fund the unit.

“The state and the GBI itself has always had an aversion to using retired folks to do anything,” Tolbert said. “Vic (Reynolds) looked at it differently. He wanted to bring back all of their experience and expertise.”

The team became fully operational in early 2021 and has since worked three cases leading to one indictment in a cold case dating back to the ‘80s near Columbus. The unit has veterans like Gary Rothwell — who was in charge of the Tara Grinstead investigation — who all bring decades of experience investigating crimes.

“Between the seven of us, we have probably got 200 years of experience,” Tolbert said. “The other part is having a fresh set of eyes on a case. They don’t have preconceived thoughts on a case. They are just looking at it on its face. It allows you to think outside of the box.”

Good old-fashioned investigative work

The cold case unit started by reaching out to the 15 regional offices and asking for two cases from each. As a result, the unit received 30 cases to start and hopes to add more in the future.

Tolbert hopes to expand the program to review more cases. The GBI is working to increase the resources and size of the team to look at more cases more quickly.

The original plan was for each team to work a case for about a month, with each investigator looking at it before making recommendations and moving on to the next case.

It hasn’t quite worked that way. The team with veteran Rothwell on it started its first case in February 2021 and hasn’t started a second case yet.

The team hasn’t been unable to move on due to success. On March 28, a grand jury indicted 64-year-old Marcellus McCluster in the 1982 murder of a former Fort Benning soldier René Dawn Blackmore.

“It was not one of those things with the sexy stuff like DNA or anything like that,” Tolbert said. “It was good old-fashioned investigative work that got it where it needed to be.”

Blackmore, an Arizona native, was a United States Army private stationed in Columbus. She disappeared on the way back to the barracks. In May 1982, her belongings were found on a roadside in Cusseta before investigators found her remains on a logging road in June of that year.

Investigators identified McCluster as a suspect early on in the investigation but it stalled out. The Blackmore case is a prime example of why the cold case unit was formed.

Pushing cold cases forward

The GBI works an average of 140-150 cases a year and only about two or three go cold each year, Tolbert said. But those add up over time. Active investigators are supposed to work cold cases regularly in addition to the new cases that come in.

The new unit allows for an investigator to step in and lighten that load. It also makes sure these cold cases get pushed forward on a more regular basis.

In addition to the Blackmore case, the new unit has made significant progress on another case. Tolbert was unable to reveal what the case was but did provide some details on what the second team has been able to do.

The case now sits on Tolbert’s desk: three bankers’ boxes full of information the three-person team has poured over to find a break in the case. Tolbert said the team identified a person of interest who was never investigated but, without a doubt, had access to the scene.

“There were probably 140 suspects in that case,” Tolbert said. “They’ve identified a person in this particular case that was never looked at 25 years ago…it is pretty significant to find someone that was never looked at.”

Cases like this and Blackmore’s have haunted investigators for decades, and that’s part of why Tolbert and his crew have returned to the GBI instead of retreating to golf courses and retirement communities. Instead, they choose to work cases for around $3 an hour.

“They have all had those cases that haunted them,” Tolbert said. “They do it because they want to bring closure to the families and bring justice to the perpetrators.”

Most rewarding feeling in the world

The unit’s efforts haven’t gone unnoticed. Donna Reitman, Blackmore’s mother, told the Ledger-Enquirer that she appreciates the unit’s dedication to solving her daughter’s case.

“I have lived these 40 years always feeling the pain her absence causes,” Reitman said. “And believing no one outside of her family and friends even cared. It is with a grateful heart that on March 28, 2022, this belief was shown to be untrue.”

Tolbert hopes Blackmore’s case is the first in a line of many that his unit is able to help solve. He said he is amazed at the dedication of the retired agents.

“Honestly, I am proud of the GBI. I have worked with them for 33 years and I got to say that although you have bad days, it is the most rewarding career in the world,” Tolbert said. “When you solve that homicide, where a family has lost somebody, that is the biggest, most rewarding feeling in the world.”

This story was originally published May 20, 2022 at 5:00 AM.