Monday Mystery: Who murdered a West Lake security guard in 1978?

They found the gun that killed West Lake security guard Craig Fallaw in 1978, they just never found who pulled the trigger.

In the early hours of Friday, Oct. 6, Fallaw, 34, was manning a guard station at the country club and residential community in Martinez. He told another security guard that he thought he saw someone crouching in nearby bushes.

He went to investigate and was fatally shot.

The other guard, who was never publicly identified, told investigators he heard Fallaw challenge the figure, then heard a shot and saw a man running away.

The guard said he rushed out and fired at Fallaw's assailant, but didn't think he hit him.

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Columbia County sheriff's deputies were soon searching the area with bloodhounds. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation was also called in and an agent was assigned to help with the case.

James F. Davis, then-GBI regional supervisor, said Fallaw had been shot once in the head after calling out, "What are you doing here? or "Who are you?"

Agents did not think the shooting was connected to another incident a few hours earlier on nearby Mayo Road involving a woman shot by a man behind her home. Police believed that was a domestic dispute.

According to West Lake Security Chief C.A. Palmer, Fallaw had recently become a fulltime employee after working part time about a year. He was well-liked by co-workers and lived in Augusta. No family was mentioned in the brief obituary announcing his Oct. 8 burial in Westview Cemetery.

Then there is the story of the .38-caliber gun that killed Craig Fallaw.

It turned up in May 1982 when a bulldozer clearing land on a vacant West Lake lot uncovered it under two feet of hard clay in heavy underbrush.

"Whoever buried it certainly did not think anybody would find it there," said then-Columbia County Sheriff Tom Whitfield.

It was inside a "cannister" along with two knives and a camera, Whitfield said. The gun had also been wrapped in a shirt and stuffed into a plastic bag, It was rusty but the serial number was legible.

That number, according to the U.S. Department of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, showed the R&G Industries weapon had been purchased June 12, 1971 by Shelly Robert Tuck, of Augusta, according to a report in The Chronicle. He did not have it long.

He was arrested a month later, charged with disorderly conduct and possession of a deadly weapon. Judge G. Bertrand Hester had the pistol confiscated July 20, 1971. It remained in Augusta Police Department custody until at least the following February when it was listed with several pages of guns to be released to their former owners. The Tuck pistol, however, was never stamped "released" by the deputy clerk.

"We don't know why," Police Chief M.D. Philpott told The Chronicle in 1982.

After its Augusta police confiscation, Whitfield later said, the gun had somehow been obtained by a West Lake resident. It might have been purchased from a pawn shop.

The resident gave it to the security guards as a "gift," because they were thought not to be armed when patrolling the property, according to Whitfield.

It was kept in the West Lake guardhouse, but was stolen during a break-in 10 days before the shooting, the Columbia County sheriff said.

The Fallaw case was still unsolved when Columbia County Sheriff's Investigator Jimmy Edmunds recalled it for The Columbia County News-Times in 2013.

Edmunds did add some details to the mystery. Fallaw's fellow guard, who had since died, reported hearing two shots, although only one struck the watchman. He also said the killer left a knit cap with eye holes cut out and a bag of burglary tools near the scene.

Edmunds, however, said it didn't make sense that a burglar would approach so close to guards and a guard shack.

He said the military type equipment found with the gun in 1982 was traced to a retired veteran, but he had no connections to Augusta.

Edmunds also said no car or getaway vehicle was seen, so perhaps a "transient" was responsible, which made solving the case harder.

"If they don't leave anything behind, leave any DNA evidence or anything like that behind, " Edmunds said, "... it's almost impossible to find them."

"Everything about that case is like a dead end," Edmunds said.

The situation has not changed.

Last week the Columbia County Sheriff's Office said it has no new developments in the 1978 murder.

Bill Kirby has reported, photographed and commented on life in Augusta and Georgia for 45 years.

This article originally appeared on Augusta Chronicle: Death of Craig Fallaw remains a mystery