UNION CITY, Ga. — A Union City family wants answers after some investigators dropped the ball and ruled their son’s death a suicide.
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Austin Mitchell’s manner of death in 2019 has since been changed to undetermined, but police still haven’t investigated the friends who were at the scene and admitted to tampering with evidence before officers arrived.
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Channel 2′s Tyisha Fernandes was in Union City Thursday, where investigators said they are actively working the case and could have new developments soon.
Fernandes talked to Kimberly Postell, Austin’s mother, who said he was at a friend’s house in Union City in March of 2019 when a shot was fired and Austin was killed.
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Union City Police body camera video shows the three friends who said Austin shot himself.
They told police that they left the scene after the suicide, never called 911, took the gun with them and came back an hour later.
“We left because we traumatized a man is dead in there,” one friend said on the body camera video. “He killed himself. What you think?”
The friends admitted that they all touched the gun.
Police arrested one of the friends, Christopher Stodgehill, and charged him with possession of the gun, which came up as stolen. He was also charged with tampering with evidence.
Officers initially ruled the death a suicide until the family asked a private investigator to take a look at the case. Eric Echols got the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office to change the manner of death from suicide to undetermined.
The DA’s office also looked at the case.
“They came back and said the Union City Police Department messed this case up so bad there’s nothing we can do about it,” Echols said. “I’ve never heard that come from a District Attorney.”
Fernandes spoke with a source who confirmed that the DA’s office said the case was investigated badly and they don’t know how to move forward.
Police said they have a different detective on the case now who is actively working on leads.
The family doesn’t believe police are taking the case seriously enough and they want an arrest as soon as possible.
“I just think he got around the wrong people,” his mother said.
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