Charges dropped in 2003 Columbus cold case killing of Albert Woolfolk
Columbus prosecutors have dismissed charges in the 2003 cold case homicide of Albert Carter Woolfolk.
Assistant District Attorney Nathan Stewart filed Thursday to dismiss the charges against Alvin Shane Barfield, who was just indicted for the decades-old crime on Dec. 16. The reason for the dismissal was “insufficient evidence to prove a felony beyond a reasonable doubt,” Stewart wrote.
Stewart filed a court motion called a “nolle prosequi,” which means prosecutors have decided not to pursue the case now, but may revive it, should they find additional evidence.
Superior Court Judge Ben Land accepted the dismissal in a hearing Friday morning.
Barfield’s defense attorney, Jennifer Curry, said her client was to be released Friday after spending 11 months in the Muscogee County Jail, unable to bond out.
“His bond was set at $150,000. It was later reduced to $120,000,” she said. “After 11 months of being incarcerated, he lost his job, his home, his car.... You look at what 11 months in the Muscogee County Jail does to someone: They don’t get outside time. They don’t see the sunshine. They don’t get to go out. They are in a cinderblock, concrete dorm for 11 months, and that takes a toll on someone mentally.”
The charges
A grand jury in December indicted the suspect on charges of murder, aggravated assault and two counts of aggravated battery for disfiguring Woolfolk’s body. The indictment said Woolfolk’s jaw was broken, as was the hyoid bone in his neck.
When detectives last year arrested Barfield in the July 2003 homicide, they said Woolfolk, 45, was stabbed more than 20 times as he was beaten and strangled to death in his Habersham Avenue home.
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, cold-case investigator Stuart Carter testified during Barfield’s Feb. 5 preliminary hearing in Columbus Recorder’s Court.
Detectives later decided Woolfolk likely was killed the morning of July 17, after he was seen leaving a Gentian Boulevard bar with three men around midnight, in his 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. 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.
A fingerprint system later 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.
Curry last year questioned the validity of the alleged fingerprint match, asking whether it was sufficient evidence to support the murder charge.
On Wednesday, Curry said Barfield was indicted twice, in Woolfolk’s case: The first indictment was during ex-District Attorney Mark Jones’ brief stint in office, before Jones resigned and pleaded guilty in November to charges related to misconduct in office.
No earlier indictment was in Barfield’s case file publicly available online. His second indictment in December was issued under the administration of Acting District Attorney Sheneka Terry, who replaced Jones.
Barfield has been in the Muscogee County Jail since Feb. 2. Police got a warrant for his arrest on Dec. 30, 2020, and sent it to the U.S. Marshals, who picked Barfield up at his home in Myrtle Beach, S.C., on Jan. 21. He waived extradition in a court hearing the next day.
This story was originally published January 7, 2022 at 11:58 AM.