Alabama man arrested 24 years after GA woman found stabbed to death, tied up in her home

WALKER COUNTY, Ga. — The Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the Walker County Sheriff’s Office has announced an arrest in the 24-year-old cold-case murder of a pharmacist.

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Julie Ann McDonald was found stabbed to death in her home in Walker County on June 11, 2000. She had been restrained and a checkbook was stolen from her home.

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Investigators believe she had been dead for several days before her body was discovered.

McDonald worked at a pharmacist at a hospital in Chattanooga, Tenn.

Authorities announced Thursday that they arrested Clerance D. George, 63, of Birmingham, Alabama on murder charges after reexamining the case.

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Investigators said they believe McDonald and George knew each other before she was killed.

George is in jail in Alabama and will be extradited back to Georgia.

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SOLVED: Mary Anga Cowan Othram DNA lab in Texas has helped solve dozens of cold cases in recent years. Here are the cases they've helped solve in Georgia. In 1985, a woman was found unconscious on the side of the highway in Albany. She died at the hospital. In 2012, her remains were exhumed and a bone fragment was taken. In March 2022, Othram used DNA to identify her as Mary Anga Cowan, from Florida. (Othram Labs/DNA Solves)

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