Man pleads guilty in 1975 slaying of Atlanta detective

Posted 7:32AM on Thursday 18th April 2002 ( 22 years ago )

ATLANTA - A 66-year-old man has pleaded guilty in the 1975 slaying of Atlanta police Detective Sam Guy. Abner Wilkinson and another suspect were arrested in 1999 after Wilkinson fell behind on his child support, leading his ex-wife to call the homicide squad and renew interest in the case. On Wednesday, Wilkinson pleaded guilty to reduced charges in Superior Court. He said he and Terry Jackson, 61, killed Guy during a motel robbery. He will testify against Jackson next week in exchange for a 12-year sentence. ``We're not jumping up and down with joy because it's a sad memory, but we're happy that we see some light at the end of the tunnel,'' said Guy's son David. Guy was killed Jan. 7, 1975, when working off-duty as a security guard at the Howard Johnson Motel near the Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium. The night clerk told police Guy confronted two men and was shot once in the shoulder and once in the leg by a bullet that severed his femoral artery. The robbers took $275 from the cash register and fled. David Guy, also an Atlanta police officer, heard the radio call that an officer had been shot at the Howard Johnson. He knew it was his father. By the time he got his mother to the hospital, the faces of the officers told him his dad had died. Police had no clues and began to suspect that out-of-towners had pulled the robbery. In 1982, FBI Special Agent Arthur Krinsky, who worked on the fugitive squad, got a tip from an informant that Wilkinson and Jackson were the killers. He contacted David Guy, who was then with the Fulton County police, and the two began investigating the case. But Guy said his superiors ordered him to hand the investigation over to detectives not so emotionally involved. ``I kept the pressure on but they didn't feel they had enough information at the time,'' Guy said. Then, in 1999, Guy heard that Atlanta police Detective Jim Rose and Sgt. Scott Bennett were quietly reopening the case after getting the tip from Wilkinson's ex-wife. Wilkinson, who had lived mostly in Hogansville, showed up at the homicide squad in September 1999 with his lawyer and a small overnight bag and confessed, saying he and Jackson had been broke heroin junkies in need of cash for a fix. ``Abner Wilkinson carried this around with him for a lot of years, and he felt bad about it,'' Rose said after the plea Wednesday. ``I think he was just ready to get it over with.''

http://accesswdun.com/article/2002/4/195819