Suspect captured in 2003 Columbus cold case homicide, authorities say
Authorities have captured a suspect in the cold-case homicide of Albert Carter Woolfolk, found slain July 18, 2003, in his Columbus home.
The suspect is Alvin Shane Barfield, now 47, who was captured in South Carolina, investigators said.
Barfield’s 2004 mugshot was among a set of “most wanted” violent offenders that the police department posted to its Facebook page on Tuesday.
After investigators obtained a warrant for Barfield’s arrest on Dec. 29, 2020, the U.S. Marshals’ Fugitive Unit began a search, according to a release from the Columbus Police Department.
The marshals arrested Barfield at 6 a.m. Thursday in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. He is being held in the J. Reuben Detention Center in Conway, S.C., and waived extradition to Columbus in a court hearing Friday morning.
The cold case
Police this past September announced they had new leads in the case, much of it related to witnesses’ accounts of Woolfolk’s leaving a bar with a regular patron known to be a belligerent, heavy drinker.
That was around midnight July 16, 2003, at a sports bar called Coach’s Corner, then located in the Gentian Corners shopping center. The suspect allegedly was one of three men with whom Woolfolk left that night.
Thirty-four hours passed before Woolfolk’s mother and a worker for his aluminum siding company found the 45-year-old dead about 10:35 a.m. July 18 in his home at 2634 Habersham Avenue, off Macon Road north of Cross Country Plaza.
He had been stabbed multiple times, police said.
The case went cold as the years passed. Woolfolk’s brother, Gene Woolfolk Jr., later created a Facebook page devoted to solving the crime, and paid for billboards promoting it.
“I’ve waited 17 years for this day, and I’m just glad it’s finally here,” Gene Woolfolk said after a Thursday news conference announcing Barfield’s arrest. “I’m ready to move on from here, and hopefully seek justice for my brother.”
Asked to describe Albert, he said, “Charismatic, somebody everybody loved.... He was a joker. He was funny. He liked having a good time. He would bring people home with him just to have a good time with them.”
That generosity likely was a factor leading to his death, the brother said: “I definitely think that played a part in it.”
The brothers, born two years apart, were musicians who played together in a high school band. Albert was a drummer, a “type-A personality,” said the brother, who was 47 years old when Albert was killed, and is 64 now.
“It goes through your mind every day,” he said of Albert’s death. “There’s not a day it doesn’t.”
Asked whether certain songs reminded him of his brother, Gene Woolfolk said “Tears in Heaven,” the song Eric Clapton wrote for a son he lost.
Investigation renewed
Detective Stuart Carter, who retired in 2019 before returning to work part-time on homicides, told the Ledger-Enquirer in September that he had found witnesses who described one of the three men who left Coach’s Corner with Woolfolk.
The man was a billiards player known to frequent Columbus bars and cause trouble, the detective said. The folks who worked at Coach’s Corner still remembered him, Carter said.
At the time he was described as 25 to 28 years old, 5-foot-10 to 6 feet tall with a medium build and clean shaven with “a possible military styled haircut.” Police called him “a heavy drinker with a violent temper who enjoyed playing pool.”
Besides Coach’s Corner, he was known to frequent a neighboring Gentian Corners bar called Red Rider, also a pool hall, and to hang out at Scooter’s, then a bar and restaurant on Sidney Simons Boulevard off Airport Thruway. Scooter’s was adjacent to a nightclub known as “Al Who’s.” Both are gone now.
At the news conference Thursday, police said Carter uncovered physical evidence linking Barfield to the homicide, but would not be more specific.
Witnesses were unfamiliar with the other two men who left the bar with Woolfolk, and did not find them as noticeable, so police had scant details on their appearance.
Both were said to be in their early 20s. One was tall, about 6 foot 4 with an afro hairstyle, Carter said. The other was shorter, under 5 foot 10.
Carter said Woolfolk was driving a silver Jaguar convertible, and the others were in a brown sedan.
Police believe Woolfolk was killed in his home within hours of leaving the bar, sometime in the early morning hours of July 17, 2003. He was married with a newborn son, but his wife and child were not home.
Robbery is a possible motive, Carter said: “Things were taken from the house.” He would not specify what was stolen.
Police still are urging anyone who from 2000 to 2004 might have encountered the suspect or his two companions to contact them. Carter can be reached at 706-225-4319 or stuartcarter@columbusga.org.
This story was originally published January 21, 2021 at 12:06 PM.