In the predawn hours of a late March Saturday in 2019, gunfire broke the quiet behind a home in the 200 block of Jones Road in Thomson, Georgia. At approximately 1:40 a.m. the Thomson Police Department received a call; on March 30 officers found 63-year-old Charles Willingham, known to family and friends as Ham, shot behind that residence and pronounced dead at the scene. Born December 25, 1955, in McDuffie County, Willingham graduated from Thomson High School in 1974 and served about twenty years with the Georgia Army National Guard, retiring as a Sergeant in 1995.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s Region 7 Field Office responded and an autopsy was ordered at the GBI Crime Lab in Decatur. Authorities asked the public for information; as of this account no arrests or suspects have been publicly announced and the investigation was described as ongoing.

Does anyone in the Thomson area have information that could help bring clarity to what happened that night?