Random encounter reopens 30-year-old Macon murder case. New details decades later
This story discusses subjects that may be disturbing to some readers. Resources are available including the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 800-656-4673, National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-7233, National Drug Helpline at 844-289-0879, and Georgia Crisis & Access Line at 800-715-4225.
Critical details of a 1996 Middle Georgia homicide that was allegedly sexually motivated have gone unreported in media, under-investigated by law enforcement and even unbeknownst to the victim’s closest relatives until recently, according to the family.
Barbara Ann Crenshaw, a 39-year-old Warner Robins woman, was allegedly killed at a creek a few miles north of a motel where she did sex work, according to the Bibb County Sheriff’s Office.
Crenshaw was a sex worker at and near Robins Motel, a since-demolished Pepto Bismol-pink motel that sat off First Street – what is now North Armed Forces Boulevard,according to The Telegraph archives and Tracy Flores, Crenshaw’s niece and close relative.
Investigator Kristina Tench, the lead investigator on the case, said she believes Crenshaw’s death was a “sexually-motivated homicide” which might’ve been connected to her involvement with sex work and drugs.
What did investigators learn at the time?
Crenshaw’s neck was slashed and her body was found on March 19, 1996, at Echeconnee Creek near a railroad off Georgia Highway 247, just north of Elberta and around 3.5 miles from the motel, according to The Telegraph archives.
“Two men told investigators that they found her body near the creek after one of them drove into a boggy swamp road and got stuck,” The Telegraph previously reported.
During a Sept. 18 interview, The Telegraph showed archived newspaper clippings on Crenshaw’s death to Batchelor.
There are multiple persons of interest in the case, according to Batchelor.
He said his team will look into people who had been named in relation to the case, including those who were named in prior reports.
“I can confidently say that that anybody, unless they have been excluded, is a person of interest that would have had motive, ability and opportunity,” Batchelor said.
No suspects or people of interest have been arrested in connection to Crenshaw’s case, the sheriff’s office said.
“It still makes my blood boil, and they got away with it,” Flores said.
Who was Barbara Ann Crenshaw?
Crenshaw was born and raised in Houston, Mississippi, where she met her boyfriend, who Flores said she knew as JD.
The couple moved to Warner Robins around two years before she was allegedly killed, according to Flores.
“The whole time she was out here, he was out here with her,” Flores said.
They last lived in an apartment together on Tabor and Ignico drives in Warner Robins, Flores said.
“After they announced it on the news that her body was found, the next morning, he came over to my parents’ house and I answered the door,” Flores said. “He just fell into my arms crying like a baby.”
Crenshaw also was an employee at White Diamond Grill, 497 Georgia Highway 247 in Bonaire, according to her niece.
Flores recalled a fonder time when her daughter and Crenshaw would play with Barbies together.
“It was the Barbies in the pink camper or pink van from back then,” the 52-year-old said.
She and her parents are Crenshaw’s only relatives who live in Middle Georgia, according to Flores. The others still live in Mississippi.
The eve of her death
The day before Crenshaw was found dead, she asked Flores for money, which she’d done before, and which Flores had given her in the past.
But this time, Flores said no.
“I wouldn’t give it to her because last time she wanted money, she went and bought crack with it instead of getting a bus ticket, going home…,” Flores said. “But then after this happened, I blame myself because I didn’t give her the money, because she went missing the next day.”
For three decades, family members including Flores had limited details on the case and never knew where Crenshaw was killed. News stories at the time only reported where her body was found, and the Macon Police Department – which led the initial investigation – never publicly said otherwise.
“All they said was, ‘Everyday new leads come in, everyday new leads come in,’” Flores said. “I think that’s just a standard saying to kind of keep your hopes up.”
Tench said she’s trying “to get some DNA testing done on the evidence.”
“There was significant blood evidence to suggest she was MOST LIKELY killed where her body was recovered,” Maj. Jason Batchelor, who leads the sheriff’s office’s Criminal Investigations Division and the recently-established Cold Case Unit, said in a text message.
Othram Labs, a private laboratory that investigates forensic evidence for law enforcement nationwide, has agreed to test DNA from 10 homicide cold cases out of Bibb County, according to Batchelor. The company was reviewing the cases and will choose from dozens of local unsolved homicides based on which have the most “physical evidence,” Batchelor said.
Tench and Batchelor did not share what evidence was obtained from Crenshaw’s case.
“We do have to be careful…,” Batchelor said. “If you’ve released in the paper, for example, ‘missing from the crime scene is a gold pendant necklace,’ what’s the killer likely to do? Destroy that evidence and now it’s no longer recoverable in a search.”
Other violent encounters
Crenshaw was also a victim of violence before her death.
“A First Street motel manager, who asked not to be identified, said Crenshaw was badly beaten just two weeks before her death,” The Telegraph previously reported. “‘She said two men picked her up on Second Street and beat her up pretty bad,’ the motel manager said.”
Flores said she didn’t know that detail until her interview with The Telegraph on Sept. 15.
It was unclear if the manager worked at the motel where Crenshaw worked.
In an earlier incident, a man in a company work van ran over Crenshaw in September 1995, Flores recalled.
“She did tell me that … another car pulled up and saw her laying on the ground, so they were on the phone calling 911 to get somebody out there,” Flores said.
She was hospitalized and spent at least three months recovering from a broken pelvic bone, according to Flores and The Telegraph archives.
Flores regularly asked police for updates on the case for around three years after Crenshaw’s death, then gave up. The Macon Police Department initially investigated the case for about a year or so before it went cold.
Two strangers, a German shepherd and a reopened case
Crenshaw’s case wasn’t reopened until this summer, when an unlikely encounter happened between two strangers and a German shepherd at Lake Tobesofkee in Macon.
The off-leash pet ran up to Mickey McGee, a Centerville resident who happens to be Crenshaw’s brother and Flores’ father. He and Crenshaw’s fingerprints helped identify Crenshaw after she was found, The Telegraph previously reported.
The 73-year-old man was a Warner Robins Police Department officer at the time of his sister’s death, and now works security for the Georgia Department of Labor, Flores said. McGee declined The Telegraph’s request for an interview.
The dog belonged to Amy Christine Hutsell, who is assisting the sheriff’s office with Crenshaw’s case as the program director of the Human Trafficking, Child Abuse and Sexual Assault Unit for the Georgia Criminal Justice Coordinating Council.
“I ran after her and apologized,” Hutsell said. “I recognized that he was probably retired law enforcement … and in that conversation, he disclosed to me that he was a family member of a victim in an unsolved, potentially sexually-motivated homicide.”
She encouraged him to file a Coleman-Baker Act application to the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council seeking an update, which prompted a “re-investigation into this case,” Capt. Linda Howard said.
How to solve a cold case? ‘Get people talking’
Around that same time, the sheriff’s office created a Cold Case Unit on July 1. Tench and Macon Regional Crimestoppers asked the public for tips on Crenshaw’s death.
“One of the good tools that I like to use is you guys as the media to help us get the word out,” Tench said. “When I dropped the Barbara Crenshaw media release, it was trying to generate leads, to try to get people talking, to get somebody to come forward.”
“Barbara was last seen in the early morning hours of March 19th, accompanied by an unknown male,” the sheriff’s office said in a news release on Aug. 12.
He was “approximately 6 feet tall, mid-30s, with brown hair,” Macon Regional Crimestoppers said on Facebook on Sept. 12.
It was unclear if he was a suspect.
“Investigators believe someone in the community holds information that could help identify those responsible,” deputies said.
Around three decades later, Flores hopes someone will be held accountable for her aunt’s death.
“Anything could help,” Flores said. “I don’t think anything’s going to hurt, just as long as we can get some kind of answers.”
Macon Regional Crimestoppers is offering up to $2,000 for anyone with information related to Crenshaw’s death that leads “directly to an arrest,” the nonprofit said on Facebook. People with tips can contact Tench at 478-310-5414, or ktench@maconbibb.us.
This story was originally published September 29, 2025 at 6:00 AM.