Columbus police share new details related to arrest of 2003 cold case murder suspect
A TV cable box. A fingerprint. A later arrest.
These factors led to detectives charging Alvin Shane Barfield in the 2003 homicide of Albert Carter Woolfolk, 45, who was stabbed more than 20 times as he was strangled to death in his Habersham Avenue home, police testified Friday at Barfield’s preliminary hearing in Columbus Recorder’s Court.
Woolfolk’s mother and a worker for his aluminum siding company called police at 10:35 a.m. when they found him slain on July 18, said cold-case investigator Stuart Carter. Detectives later decided he likely was killed the morning of July 17, after he was seen leaving a bar with three men around midnight.
The business was Coach’s Corner, a sports bar then located in the Gentian Corners shopping plaza at Reese Road and Gentian Boulevard, where witnesses said the four men left in Woolfolk’s silver Jaguar convertible.
The car was parked outside Woolfolk’s home, when his employees came looking for him on July 17. They knocked on the door, and got no answer, so they left, Carter testified.
Investigators inspecting the crime scene the next day noticed valuables were missing from the 2634 Habersham Ave. house.
Woolfolk had a big-screen TV in his living room, with a cable box atop it. The TV was still there, but police found the cable box upside-down on the floor of a sun room, Carter said.
From that box, police lifted a fingerprint, and found that it matched neither Woolfolk nor anyone in his family. Back in 2003, it also matched no print filed with the FBI’s “Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System” known as AFRES, which compiles the prints of those charged with crimes.
Barfield’s prints were not on file then, Carter said.
New developments
Carter first was assigned to Woolfolk’s case in 2016, but had to set it aside to work other homicides. He was able to resume his investigation this past July, and asked crime-scene technician David Jury to run the print through AFRES again.
On Aug. 6, the system matched it to Barfield’s right, middle finger, Carter testified, explaining Barfield’s prints had been collected when he was charged with other offenses, after Woolfolk’s death.
Carter did not detail the other cases, but told Judge Julius Hunter that this past September, he interviewed four witnesses who told him Barfield had assaulted people, with similarities in each incident.
Police in September announced they had new leads in Woolfolk’s homicide, asking the public’s aid in identifying one of the men with whom Woolfolk left Coach’s Corner in 2003.
They said he was white, 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.” They called him “a heavy drinker with a violent temper who enjoyed playing pool.”
Born in 1974, Barfield is 46 now. He would have been 30 when Woolfolk was killed.
What police did not say in September was that they already had questioned Barfield, and wanted more witnesses to come forward.
Carter testified that he and Detective Matt Sitler traveled Aug. 19 to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, where Barfield was living. The suspect agreed to an interview, and acknowledged that in 2003 he lived in Columbus, where he worked as a furniture salesman.
One of his employers had a store on Macon Road, near Woolfolk’s home, Carter said. But Barfield told the detectives he never knew Woolfolk, and denied he was ever in Woolfolk’s residence, where police claimed to find his fingerprint.
After Friday’s hearing, Barfield’s defense attorney, Jennifer Curry, questioned the validity of the alleged fingerprint match, and whether it was sufficient evidence to support the murder charge. In court she noted that even after police questioned him in August, Barfield did not try to flee from his Myrtle Beach home to avoid arrest.
Police got a warrant for him on Dec. 30, and sent it to the U.S. Marshals, who picked Barfield up at his home on Jan. 21. He waived extradition in a court hearing the next day, and was booked into the Muscogee County Jail on Feb. 2.
That is where he’s to remain, as Judge Hunter found the fingerprint sufficient probable cause to order him held without bond, as the case goes to Muscogee Superior Court.
Among the remaining mysteries are the identities of the other two men who left Coach’s Corner with Woolfolk. Witnesses did not find them as noticeable, and police had no detailed descriptions.
But Carter said Friday that another fingerprint from the crime scene has yet to be matched.
Police still are urging anyone with information on the case to contact Carter at 706-225-4319 or stuartcarter@columbusga.org.
This story was originally published February 5, 2021 at 12:51 PM.