A Thomson man who had been the focus of an investigation of a 2006 hit-and-run death has been cleared by a grand jury looking into the allegations.
Grand jurors met on Thursday in the McDuffie County Courthouse in Thomson to consider possibly indicting the man on a charge of vehicular homicide in the first degree, according to court records. The panel, which meets in secret session under Georgia law, refused to indict the man. No reasons were given for their decision.
The man was never publicly named as a suspect.
He had been accused in the death of 41-year-old Michael E. Adams, who was struck and killed by the driver of a vehicle while walking along Cobbham Road on Labor Day night 2006.
Although an arrest was never made in the case, it remained an active one by the Georgia State Patrol and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. When the name of a suspect materialized in the case, authorities decided to present their findings to the Toombs Judicial Circuit District Attorney's Office for review, according to Gary Nicholson, special agent in-charge of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation Region 7 office.
