Gwinnett County police make arrest in 5-year-old cold case homicide

ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) - Gwinnett County police have announced an arrest in a five-year-old cold case homicide.

Carmen Hunt, 50, has been charged with felony murder and aggravated assault, the department said on Thursday. She was already in Gwinnett County Jail in connection to a 2022 stabbing.

Gwinnett County police said in 2024, a family member of Ray Neal, the man whose murder has gone unsolved for years, called the department’s cold case unit and said he believed Hunt was the suspect. New interviews and reviewed evidence, including fingerprints collected at the crime scene, led to Hunt’s arrest.

On July 20, 2019, officers were called to a home off Lexington Drive in unincorporated Lawrenceville. Neal’s sister came to the house to check on her 61-year-old brother, who hadn’t been answering the phone, and found him dead inside a bedroom, she told police.

Officers found blood on the bed, on the walls of the bathroom and on the shower curtain. At first, they weren’t certain if the blood was related to one of Neal’s multiple medical conditions — but funeral home employees noticed “suspicious marks” on Neal’s neck while moving the body, according to police.

Initially, the Gwinnett County Medical Examiner’s Office determined that he passed away from natural causes. But upon further investigation it was revealed that he was stabbed to death.

Ashli Haynes is Neal’s niece who found the suspected murder weapon under her uncle’s bed while cleaning his home just days after his death.

“I don’t think I’ll ever be at peace because I want to know why, and I don’t ever think I’ll get that part of closure,” Haynes said.

She reported the butcher’s knife as evidence to the detectives working the case.

“I think it was drug related and that’s how she knew of him,” Haynes said.

Sgt. Micah Hegwood leads the cold case unit at the Gwinnett County Police Department and said fingerprints gathered at the scene match that of the suspect.

“We’ve always had a lot of fingerprints from the scene, and particularly there was one that was in blood, Ray Neal’s blood,” Hegwood said. “I’m confident that we will actually get a conviction when she has her day in court.”

“Sgt. Hegwood promised me he would get to the bottom of it. You know, you see things on TV and say, ‘No, it’s not going to happen,’ but it did and I’m grateful for that,” Haynes said.

Though police have made an arrest in this cold case, detectives said there are still more than 180 cold cases on the books in Gwinnett County.