James Lawrence III, 47, of Irwin County, was arrested Thursday and charged with malice murder, felony murder, and aggravated assault in the 1998 killing of 20 year old Christy Dawn Myers, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation announced Friday. Myers was found shortly after midnight on Sept. 15, 1998, outside her car on the side of Broxton Fitzgerald Highway in Coffee County. Investigators determined she had suffered multiple stab wounds.
The Coffee County Sheriff’s Office asked the GBI Regional Investigative Office in Douglas for help the same day. According to the GBI’s longstanding account of the case, Myers lived in Broxton with her common law husband and their young daughter. Late on Sept. 14 she left home for a store in Broxton. Witnesses saw her and spoke with her there.
She was later seen driving away alone. A neighborhood canvass found that residents heard a conversation followed by a car engine accelerating. A citizen who went to check on the disturbance found Myers dead beside her vehicle. The case stayed open for nearly 28 years.
Agents and Coffee County investigators continued interviews, followed leads, collected and preserved evidence, and administered polygraph examinations. Evidence was submitted for forensic testing more than once as laboratory methods advanced. The GBI’s statewide Cold Case Unit, formed in 2023, later joined regional agents and local investigators for another review. Officials said that work produced a strategy that connected Lawrence to the scene through forensic evidence.
At a Friday news conference in Douglas, GBI Region 4 Special Agent in Charge Jessica Hamilton described the link as conclusive latent fingerprint and DNA evidence and confirmed that DNA played a role in the identification. The GBI’s written announcement stated that continued testing identified Lawrence as a suspect through forensic evidence. Authorities have not publicly said whether Lawrence and Myers knew each other, and they have not disclosed a possible motive.
Lawrence did not make a statement when he was taken into custody, according to investigators. Available reporting does not document any earlier criminal history for him. Lawrence was arrested Oct. 1 with help from the Irwin County Sheriff’s Office and booked into the Coffee County Jail. Local accounts placed the booking just after 11 a.m.
He is listed as an Irwin County resident; one local report identified Fitzgerald as his home. Bond has not been addressed in public statements from the GBI or Coffee County authorities. The investigation remains active. Once it is finished, the file will go to the Waycross Judicial Circuit District Attorney’s Office for prosecution.
“This arrest represents the culmination of those continued efforts,” the GBI said, citing cooperation among its offices, local agencies, intelligence analysts, forensic scientists, and prosecutors. Coffee County Sheriff Fred Cole told Myers’ family at the news conference that the arrest does not return the years they lost with her, but that he hoped it showed she was never forgotten.
Acting Waycross Judicial Circuit District Attorney Ian Sansot said ethical limits on pending cases restricted what he could discuss, while noting that the arrest should reassure the community that work continues when justice remains unfinished. Myers’ daughter, Chelsea Wolfe, who was about 2 when her mother was killed, said the news lifts some of the weight the family has carried. “I don’t want my mom to be remembered as only a victim,” she said. “She was so much more than that.”
Family members have held a candlelight vigil each September since the killing. In a 2003 interview, Myers’ grandmother, Josephine Adams, said the family knew of no enemies and described her as a happy go lucky person. Anyone with information can contact the GBI office in Douglas at 912 389 4103 or the Coffee County Sheriff’s Office at 912 384 4227. Anonymous tips may be submitted by phone at 1 800 597 TIPS.
