Christy Dawn Myers Cold Case: Arrest Made 28 Years After Georgia Mother Was Killed

Chelsea Wolfe grew up without her mother.

She was a toddler in September 1998 when her mom, 20-year-old Christy Dawn Myers, drove out of Broxton, Georgia, one night to run to the store and never came home. For 28 years, Wolfe lived with a question nobody could answer: who did this?

On Thursday, October 1, 2026, investigators say they finally have a name. Agents with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, working with the Coffee County and Irwin County sheriff’s offices, arrested 47-year-old James Lawrence III at a home in Irwin County. He is charged with malice murder, felony murder and aggravated assault in Myers’ death.

“I always had questions,” Wolfe said at a GBI news conference, according to WALB. “It always weighed on me.”

The Night of September 14, 1998

Broxton is a small town in Coffee County, in the farm country of south Georgia. According to the Coffee County Sheriff’s Office, Christy Myers left her home there on the night of September 14, 1998, to go to a local store. Witnesses saw her at the store. They also saw her leave alone, in her own vehicle.

Shortly after midnight, she was found outside her car along the Broxton-Fitzgerald Highway. She had been stabbed multiple times. Nearby residents told investigators they had heard a conversation outside, followed by the sound of a car accelerating fast and driving away. One neighbor went to check and found her, according to CBS News Atlanta.

Those details matter. Someone was talking with Christy Myers on the side of that highway. Someone left in a hurry. But in 1998, that was where the trail stopped.

“Everybody Loved Her”

Over the years, Myers’ family said the same thing again and again: there was no obvious reason anyone would want to hurt her. Her grandmother once put it simply: “We weren’t aware that she had any enemies. Everybody loved her.”

Her daughter wants people to know who Christy was, not just how she died. “She was always excited to meet new people. She hardly met a stranger,” Wolfe said, according to CBS News Atlanta. Her mother loved to take hour-long walks and to sing.

“I don’t want my mom to be remembered as just a victim,” Wolfe said. “She was so much more than that.”

Wolfe turns 30 in November. She called the arrest “the best birthday present.” And she described the part that cold cases steal from families, the part that never makes the headline: “I grew up with not knowing who she was and not knowing, you know, who she would be now.”

Twenty-Eight Years of Testing

So what changed? According to the GBI’s official announcement, investigators kept submitting and re-testing forensic evidence in the case over the course of 28 years, and that continued testing led them to identify Lawrence as a suspect. WALB reported that DNA evidence connected him to the crime scene. The GBI said the arrest “represents the culmination of those continued efforts.”

Authorities have not publicly detailed what evidence was tested, what kind of DNA analysis was used, or how Lawrence was connected to Myers, if at all. Those details will likely come out in court. Until then, it is important to be precise: James Lawrence III has been charged. He has not been convicted. The Coffee County Sheriff’s Office said so directly, noting that the arrest is an accusation only and that he is presumed innocent until proven guilty.

What we do know is how much forensic science has changed since 1998. That year, DNA testing usually needed a sizable, fairly fresh biological sample, and national DNA databases were still in their early years. Today, labs can develop profiles from far smaller and older samples, and modern sequencing tools can pull information from evidence that would have been useless when it was first collected. That is why investigators across the country keep evidence locked up for decades and keep sending it back to the lab. We saw the same pattern last week, when a Hanover man was charged in the Kimberley Gsell case seven years after she disappeared.

The Law Behind the Breakthrough

Coffee County officials gave a lot of credit to a Georgia law that most people outside the state have never heard of.

The Coleman-Baker Act, signed by Governor Brian Kemp in April 2023 and effective July 1, 2023, created a dedicated cold case unit inside the GBI. It is named for Sue Coleman, a University of Georgia student, and Tara Baker, killed in 2001, both cases that went unsolved for years. The law funded the unit with about $5.4 million and added 10 agents plus support staff, with expanded crime scene technology and DNA capacity, according to WTVM. The unit can review unsolved homicides that happened after January 1, 1970, and are more than three years old.

According to WALB, the Myers arrest is the third cold case that Coffee County and the GBI have solved in roughly 18 months, credited to that unit. The sheriff’s office said it is the second cold case arrest this year and the third under Sheriff Fred Cole’s administration.

That is the real story behind the story. Cold cases are not solved by a flash of genius in the last act. They are solved by money, staffing, lab capacity and somebody being assigned to keep picking up the file. When a state decides to pay for that work, cases move. When it does not, families like Christy Myers’ wait.

What the Sheriff Said

Sheriff Fred T. Cole spoke to Myers’ family directly. “I know this arrest will not give you the years you lost with her, but I hope today shows you that Christy was never forgotten,” he said, according to CBS News Atlanta.

He also had a message for anyone else carrying an old secret in his county: “If you committed a crime in Coffee County, it may take some time, but you will be caught.”

And he made a point of sharing the credit. “We couldn’t solve these cases without their diligent effort,” Cole said of the GBI.

What Happens Next

Lawrence was booked into the Coffee County Jail, where he remains pending adjudication. The GBI said the case file will go to the Waycross Judicial Circuit District Attorney’s Office for prosecution. Under Georgia law, malice murder means a killing with intent, while felony murder applies when a death happens during the commission of another felony. Prosecutors will decide how to proceed on each count. Because the charges include murder, the case is expected to go before a Coffee County grand jury before any trial, which means the public may not see the full evidence for months.

The GBI says the investigation is still active. That usually means investigators are still collecting information, and it is a signal that people who remember something from 1998 should still speak up.

Anyone with information can contact:

• GBI Regional Investigative Office in Douglas: 912-389-4103
• Coffee County Sheriff’s Office: 912-384-4227
• Anonymous GBI tip line: 1-800-597-TIPS (8477)
• Online: gbi.georgia.gov/submit-tips-online

What We Still Do Not Know

A good arrest announcement answers one question and raises five more. Here is what officials have not said publicly as of this writing, and what to watch for as the case moves toward court:

• The connection. Investigators have not said whether Lawrence and Myers knew each other. Any relationship, or the lack of one, will be for the evidence to show, not for us to guess.
• The evidence. The GBI has not said what item or sample was tested, when the key result came back, or what kind of DNA work produced the match.
• The conversation. Neighbors heard voices before the car sped off. Whether investigators have identified the vehicle, or whether anyone else was present, has not been made public.
• A motive. Officials have offered none, and the family has said they knew of no one who wanted to hurt Christy.
• The defense. As of publication, no attorney for Lawrence had made a public statement. When one does, his side deserves a fair hearing, just like the evidence against him.

We will update this story as court records and official statements become available.

Why This Case Matters Beyond Coffee County

Thousands of homicides in this country go unsolved every year, and many of those families end up exactly where Christy Myers’ family was: holding onto hope and a phone number. Cases like this one, and others we have followed such as the Tasia Fortune investigation, show how much depends on investigators who refuse to let a file close and on the science catching up.

Twenty-eight years is a long time. It is a whole childhood. Chelsea Wolfe spent hers wondering. Now she, and a court, will get a chance to hear the evidence. Whatever happens next, her mother’s name is being said out loud again, and not just as a victim. As a young woman who loved to walk, loved to sing, and never met a stranger.