Nearly a year after a popular local firefighter was fatally shot inside a Sandfly bar, Savannah-Chatham police investigators tracked the alleged shooter to a small Texas town just outside Dallas.
Ultimately, an anonymous tip through CrimeStoppers led detectives to Watauga, Texas, on May 16 of last year where they captured Brandon Rainer Mackey and charged him with the June 15, 2012, killing of 21-year-old Wesley Franklin at Deb’s Pub & Grub. Police say Franklin was killed when Mackey fired two shots into a wall of the bar while robbing two women outside.
The 27-year-old suspect’s arrest and indictment on felony murder, robbery and a handful of others was one of the dozens of crimes local law enforcement agencies credited CrimeStoppers with helping solve last year.
The Franklin investigation
In the weeks and months that followed Franklin’s death hundreds of tips came flooding into Savannah-Chatham CrimeStoppers, especially after police released a video of the crime.
Each and every tip was forwarded to the investigators working the case, program officials said.
“We’re obliged to pass all the information we receive on,” said interim Savannah-Chatham CrimeStoppers director Gianna Nelson, who was appointed in November after longtime director Demery Bishop retired. “Even if it is vague, it may be that one piece of information that (police) are looking for. So, we don’t pass judgement on the value of the tip.”
Without the CrimeStoppers tip, said Savannah-Chatham police Maj. Larry Branson, investigators would have had a significantly more difficult time finding Mackey.
Branson likened the search for Franklin’s suspected killer — and the majority of police investigations — to a tree with dozens of branches.
“We follow all the way down one branch until there’s not any more information there. Then we move on to the next branch,” Branson said.
Eventually, the right branch led investigators to Texas and Mackey.
“We followed well over 400 tips that came in that were investigated fully,” he said. “And then we got our break. We got our break and it all fell into place.”
Tips lead to 83 arrests
CrimeStoppers received 1,492 calls in 2013 that helped solve 85 crimes and led to 83 arrests. The nonprofit organization was credited with helping clear two homicides, an aggravated assault, four burglaries, four robberies and 14 cases involving “significant drug activity.”
Additionally, Nelson said, CrimeStoppers tips led to the arrest of dozens of child support absconders and individuals with outstanding warrants for crimes like contempt of court and failure to appear.
For those cleared cases, CrimeStoppers’ board of directors approved $25,300 in reward funds for tips that led to arrests. That money is raised entirely through CrimeStoppers fundraisers.
Additionally, donors can provide private funds to be distributed in a specific case. For example, in the Franklin homicide, private donors raised more than $20,000.
But money many times is not the motivating factor for tipsters, Nelson said. In fact, last year only 24 percent of money approved for distribution was picked up.
“That is absolutely typical,” she said. “It’s gone up slightly during the last couple years just because of the financial situations of a lot of people, but for the most part people just want a place to provide information without having to contact police for a number of reasons.”
Among those concerns, Nelson said, is the fear of retaliation.
“So, they come to us, and we act as the broker between them and the police department,” she added. “We’ll take their tip, we don’t ask who they are, where they live or anything else. We simply get their information — we ask the pertinent information about the suspect — and that’s it. We never know who it is giving us a tip.”
‘Absolutely anonymous’
CrimeStoppers, Nelson said, is completely anonymous.
The organization does not have any form of caller ID and goes to great lengths to keep from learning tipsters’ identities.
It’s the only way the program works, she said.
Still, some people in the community believe CrimeStoppers knows who’s calling, said Branson, who sits on the organization’s board of directors.
“The anonymity of this is absolute,” the major said. “Somehow, somewhere information was shared out in the public that these tips are somehow not truly anonymous, but they are. The are absolutely anonymous.”
Callers are only identifiable by a ID number that they provide themselves.
After giving a tip, they give their number to the operator and can use that ID to check on the case later.
“If they want information on the status of that tip, they have to call us back and give us that number, and we’ll usually ask for one or two pertinent pieces of information that were given in that tip just to double check that they are in fact who they say they are,” Nelson said.
If the tip leads to an arrest and the CrimeStoppers board approves a payout, the money is left at a bank for the tipster to pick up after he or she calls for an update.
“We give them instruction on which bank to report to to pick up their reward money, how much the reward money is, and when they go to the bank, they’re instructed to go to a specific teller, give her the tip code and the teller will turn over cash. No questions asked, no ID required.
“So, the individual is never known to anybody at all either at the beginning or the end of the process.”
An ‘instrumental’ part of investigation
Law enforcement agencies throughout Chatham County “wholly depend” on CrimeStoppers information, Branson said.
“Each and every tip is followed up as though this is the tip,” he said. “We’re going to look very closely at every tip we get. We’re just as assertive about following up on minor crime tips as we are on major crime tips because we love nothing better than to bring justice to our community.”
Robert Edenfield, chief investigator for the Chatham County office of child support enforcement, estimated between 70 and 75 percent of the CrimeStoppers tips his agency receives are helpful.
“Most of the tips we get either end up being good or they end up leading to other tips and information where we can eventually make an arrest,” Edenfield said. “It’s a big reason that for us, we’re always telling people when we’re out that if they hear anything or get any information to call CrimeStoppers. It’s gotten to where everyone knows the 912-234-2020 number, and that’s a good thing.”
Other police officials echoed those sentiments.
“Any intel you can gather in an investigation helps,” said Pooler Police Chief Mark Revenew. “Even if it’s as small as something that gives our investigators a direction to focus or a suspect to check out that we may not have known about, that’s critical.”
CrimeStoppers often is the only reliable way of finding that information, said Garden City Police Chief David Lyons.
“They are the only way it can work to have a completely anonymous way to talk to law enforcement,” Lyons said. “CrimeStoppers is instrumental in solving cases in Garden City.”
He encouraged any person who knows anything about crimes that have occurred in this area to call the agency.
“Any tip they’ve got; every tip they can think of, they need to just pick up their phone and call,” Lyons said. “They can know for sure, 100 percent, that no one is going to find out who called, and their information just may be absolutely critical to solving crimes.”
ABOUT CRIMESTOPPERS
Savannah-Chatham CrimeStoppers collects anonymous tips about crimes in the local area. To submit a tip to CrimeStoppers call 912-234-2020 or text CRIMES (274637) using the keyword CSTOP2020. More information and a list of the area’s most wanted fugitives are available online at www.savannahchathamcrimestoppers.org.