GWINNETT COUNTY, Ga. — A suspect has finally been arrested in the cold case of a man, four years after the gruesome crime.
Police arrested 41-year-old David Thacker and charged in the in the murder of Michael Jones, whose remains were found at an Auburn, Georgia home back in May 2016.
Jones had been reported missing back on April 7, 2014. Two years later, on May 24, 2016, investigators found the remains off of Bailey Road and W. Union Grove Circle.
Detectives identified Thacker as a person of interest early on in the investigation, but only recent developments in the past months gave them a reason to finally arrest him, though officials did not release what those new developments were.
11Alive's Faith Abubey spoke to Jones' family on the same day authorities announced Thacker's arrest. They said they always suspected Thacker was the man responsible for their brother's death.
"It's four years coming," said Jones' older brother Chip. "If they would have listened to me, it wouldn't have taken four years."
Chip said from the moment his brother disappeared in April 2014, he knew something was up.
"It was basically as if he had turned the food off and went to Publix to get something else and never returned."
Days later, clue No. 1: Thacker is linked to the Jones' van.
"I don't think they were friends," Chip recalled. "They may have been acquaintances at best."
But for two years, there was no sign of Jones, and the case went cold.
Then, in May 2016, a single phone call from the woods would break the case.
"As I was walking back to my truck, I noticed something laying on the ground and I was like, 'No way. That's not a human skull'," recounted Wayne Kiennep.
Kiennep was hunting in the woods in Auburn, Georgia when he spotted the sight that seemed out of place.
"I actually reached down and picked it up, and I could tell by the weight that it was actually real, so I put it down where I found out. Walked back there and called police," Kiennep recalled.
It took five months to officially identify the remains as Jones', and in November 2016 his death was ruled a homicide. Someone had hit him multiple times with a blunt object, killing him.
"That was a body. That was a human. That was my brother," Chip explained.
Chip said his brother had a criminal past and was starting to get clean, but got mixed up in bad company. Somehow he crossed paths with Thacker, and investigators say the two had a disagreement weeks before Jones disappeared.
"At that point, that just told me that was a revenge type deal," Chip said.
Investigations had been ongoing for the past four years and Thacker is now charged with aggravated assault and felony murder.
"I'm just glad that they were able to finally able to put all the pieces of the puzzle together," Chip said. "I'm glad I was able to help. That's something that if the rest of my family was alive would be glad."
Thacker was already being held at the Forsyth County Jail on unrelated charges and will be transferred to Gwinnett County Detention Center at a later date.
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