VALDOSTA – A suspect has been named in a 24-year-old cold case, Lowndes County Sheriff Ashley Paulk said Tuesday.

Deputies are actively searching for Calvin Jerome Davis, 49, of Valdosta in connection with the 1993 murder of Grant Green, the sheriff said.

In September 1993, months after Paulk took office for his first term, Green was reported as a missing person after he failed to return home from his job as an insurance salesman. Green often went door to door to collect insurance premiums from his customers, Paulk said.

Green’s truck was found Sept. 2, 1993, on East Savannah Avenue and his body was later found near the intersection of Clay Road and Highway 94. A machete was used in the attack on Green.

A $25,000 reward was offered for information regarding the case, but nothing ever turned up.

At the time, Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation recovered evidence, including a palm print in blood on the tailgate of the Green’s truck.

However, in 1993, palm prints could not be identified, Paulk said.

“I came back into being sheriff, we started looking into cold cases again,” Paulk said, referring to his not seeking re-election in 2008 and being re-elected to the sheriff’s office in 2016.

The Grant Green case was recently featured in a SunLight Project article on cold cases in The Valdosta Daily Times.

“The key thing in this case was the palm print. We enlisted the help of Thomas County and got a match on the print to Calvin Jerome Davis,” Paulk said. “He was in our facility at that time.”

While the sheriff’s office gathered other evidence, Davis was released from jail and, as of Tuesday afternoon, was still at large.

An arrest warrant on a charge of murder for Davis was issued Sept. 1, just short of day from the 24th anniversary of Green’s body being discovered, according to sheriff’s reports.

Davis is 5-foot-5, 180 pounds and is believed to be in the Valdosta area, according to the sheriff’s office. Anyone with information regarding his whereabouts should call 911, according to authorities. 

Desiree Carver is Lifestyles Editor at the Valdosta Daily Times. She can be reached at (229) 375-5777.