Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
COLUMBUS, Ga. (AP) — Georgia police detectives said a fingerprint match more than 15 years after a killing led them to arrest a man in January in South Carolina for a 2003 killing.
A judge on Friday declined to set bail for Alvin Barfield, 46, refusing arguments from the defense that Barfield, who's charged with murder, was not a flight risk due to his cooperation with detectives.
Columbus cold-case investigator Stuart Carter testified Friday that he was assigned to investigate the 2003 death of Albert Carter Woolfolk. The Ledger-Enquirer reports the 45-year-old was found stabbed more than 20 times and strangled in his home, apparently after leaving a bar with three men around midnight.
Investigators noted that a big-screen TV, an unusual luxury item in 2003, was missing. Police found the cable box that had been atop it 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.
Carter said he asked a crime scene technician to run the fingerprints through an FBI database in August, matching to prints taken from Barfield after an unrelated arrest.
Born in 1974, Barfield would have been 30 when Woolfolk was killed.
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, Georgia, where he worked as a furniture salesman.
Barfield told the detectives he never knew Woolfolk, and denied he was ever in Woolfolk's home, where police claimed to find his fingerprint.
Police got a warrant for his arrest Dec. 30 and sent it to the U.S. Marshals, who arrested Barfield on Jan. 21. He was booked into the Muscogee County Jail on Tuesday.
Police have not been able to identify a second fingerprint found at the crime scene. With witnesses saying Woolfolk left the bar with three men, Carter said Friday that it's unlikely one man alone could have lifted a big-screen TV in 2003.
___
This story has been corrected to show Alvin Barfield's age is 46, not 47.
Copyright © 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
