Dead Body Found in Driveway Sparks Georgia Homicide Investigation

A man has been found dead in the driveway of a home in Hephzibah, Georgia.

The body was discovered early on Friday on the 2900 block of Ulm Road and Richmond County Coroner's Office was alerted. The man was pronounced dead when the authorities reached the property at 1:15 a.m.

He was later identified as Alan Newsome, a 25-year-old who lived in the 3500 block of Woodlake Road, south of Augusta—a 10-minute drive away from Ulm Road.

The authorities have not released any more information about Newsome, including why he might have been at the address where his body was found.

His death is being treated as a possible homicide by investigators. An autopsy to determine the cause of death will be performed by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

The U.S. murder rate has increased in recent years, reaching its highest level in nearly two-and-a-half decades in 2020, when the country also recorded a historic one-and-a-half-year decline in life expectancy, the biggest since World War II.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said this was mostly due to COVID-19 deaths, but the surge in homicides was a significant contributing factor.

In Georgia, the homicide rate is higher than the national average. Answering a survey conducted by SafeWise in 2021, 56 percent of respondents—all Georgia residents—said they were worried "on a daily basis" that crime might happen to them (although most were concerned about package theft).

The survey also found that 13 percent of respondents had been a victim of violent crime and another 13 percent of gun violence.

In 2021 violent crimes represented 17 percent of all crime in Georgia, and at 24 percent the state saw the third highest increase in violent crime in the whole country from 2020 to 2021.

In January, three men were charged in Georgia for the racially-motivated murder of Ahmaud Arbery in 2020, which stirred protests across the state.

Travis McMichael and his father Gregory McMichael, who shot Arbery when he was jogging through their neighborhood, were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Their neighbor William "Roddie" Bryan was given a life sentence with the possibility of seeking parole after 30 years in jail.

Thirty years is the minimum sentence allowed by Georgia law for murder.

Following the case, Georgia passed hate crime legislation into law. In 2020, it was one of only four states in the entire country to lack such legislation.

Violent crimes are below the national average in the city of Hephzibah, where Newsome's body was found. The crime rate there is 34.86 per 1,000 residents on average per year.