Fred Andrew Wyatt, a 45-year-old man from Clayton County, Georgia, was found dead on November 12, 1977, inside his vehicle after it had been struck by a train. What first looked like an accident was later determined to be a premeditated killing: investigators concluded Wyatt had been shot in the head before the collision and that the driver’s seat had been positioned unnaturally for a man of his stature, suggesting he had been placed in the car after death.

The inquiry into Wyatt’s life uncovered links to drug trafficking and a history of domestic abuse, and his death was later connected to the nearby murder of Betty Jo Ephlin, whose body was recovered from the Flint River with a gunshot wound to the head. A break came in 2003 through DNA testing that tied the crimes to Carl Millard Patton Jr., Wyatt’s nephew. Patton admitted he carried out Wyatt’s murder for a life insurance payoff allegedly arranged by Wyatt’s common-law wife, Marie Jackson Wyatt, and that he then killed several others to silence witnesses, including an accomplice, Joseph Thomas Cleveland, Ephlin, and Liddie Matthews Evans.

Patton pleaded guilty to the murders and received multiple life sentences. Does anyone have information about Wyatt’s life in Clayton County or contacts who might have known these victims?