FULTON COUNTY, Ga. — Six years after the gruesome murder of Harry Hubbard and his wife Deborah, the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office said they do not have the needed evidence to try and convict their accused killer, Cornelius Muckle.
However, attorneys say problems with the initial investigation accusing the wrong man may have made the prosecution of Muckle difficult.
Muckle was not the first person arrested in connection with the crime.
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Around 4 a.m. on July 3, 2018, firefighters rushed to northwest Atlanta to find a home on fire and bodies inside. Firefighters found the remains of Deborah and Harry Hubbard, who were likely strangled shortly before the fire began.
Months later, police arrested Deborah’s eldest son, Sylvester, for the murder. Sylvester was known for seeing his mom almost daily and saw them before leaving at 9 p.m. that night.
According to court paperwork, the detective wrote in his affidavit to get an arrest warrant that Sylvester acted suspiciously after the fire and had bought alcohol and moth balls shortly before the fire.
However, judges during an appeal said the detective omitted facts that would have prevented Sylvester from ever being thrown in jail.
The appeals judges said the affidavit used as the basis of Sylvester’s arrest warrant left out important facts of the timeline.
It did not mention that Harry Hubbard’s niece told police that she talked with Harry at 9:30 p.m. and that the man seemed OK.
Video and cell phone data also supported Sylvester’s alibi, showing he never returned to the residence after leaving around 9 p.m. That information was not provided to the judge who signed off on the arrest warrant, according to court paperwork.
“They shoehorned everything to try and point the finger at someone they knew did not do it,” Zack Greenamyre, one of Sylvester’s attorneys, said.
After spending more than a year in jail, Sylvester was released. In September, the Atlanta City Council agreed to pay $1.5 million to settle Sylvester’s lawsuit for wrongful arrest.
In 2021, an investigation by the Fulton County DA’s Office found cell phone data placing Cornelius Muckle at the scene around 3 am. Muckle also allegedly pawned items owned by the Hubbards two days after their deaths.
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However, the Fulton County DA says they decided to not pursue a court case this month because:
“The Fulton County District Attorney’s Office is committed to bringing indictments to trial only when there is sufficient evidence to prove charges beyond a reasonable doubt. The evidence did not meet that standard in this case, and adhering to the fundamental principle that the state bears the burden of proof, and every indicted person is presumed innocent until proven guilty, the office made the decision to not prosecute Mr. Muckle.”
“They didn’t get the answer right the first time, and now it seems they are never going to get an answer about what happened in this case,” Greenamyre said.
Former DeKalb County DA Robert James said the age of the case, along with issues in the initial investigation likely complicated a potential prosecution.
“Because they have an old case, and I’m certain some things have gone stale, and then they have a detective that you can’t really trust what he says,” James said.
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