Lt. D.G. Schoeppner is Tucker’s liaison to the DeKalb County Police Department and can be followed at facebook.com/dgschoeppner or emailed at dgschoeppner@dekalbcountyga.gov.
Some of the most memorable experiences I have had in police work were from when I was assigned to Homicide. In quite a few of those cases, the victim was committing a crime, or some other sort of poor behavior, which led to their demise. However, sometimes the victims were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Greggory Savelio was one of the latter cases. Although it didn’t happen here in Tucker, this month marks 11 years since his murder, and I wanted to reflect on a case that left an indelible impact on me.
On Saturday August 22, 2009 we responded to the Chevron Food Mart at 2450 Candler Road. When officers arrived, they discovered Mr. Savelio suffering from a gunshot wound to his torso. He died on the way to the hospital. After interviewing the witnesses and reviewing the evidence we discovered a couple of things. Surveillance video showed the suspect run away from the incident. He ran around behind the pharmacy next door and got into a dark colored vehicle. Witnesses described a dark colored Buick LeSabre speeding away from the location. They were also able to give a partial tag. When we searched the path the suspect had taken, we found he had left behind a Class of 2008 graduation t-shirt from Columbia High School. Two days later we tracked down the Buick LeSabre. After interviewing the owner, his son and his son’s girlfriend, we concluded that they were simply bystanders fleeing from the gunshots. Several more weeks of following leads came up empty.
I had begun to think this case was going to go unsolved until I received a phone call on October 27. An informant had claimed to have information on this case. When I interviewed her, she said the suspect was named Joseph Thomas. She knew the suspect’s brother. The two had been talking about Thomas being arrested for murder in Augusta when the brother told her that he had killed someone in Atlanta, too.
I checked with the Richmond County Sheriff’s office and they confirmed that Thomas was lodged there for murder. The circumstances of that crime were very similar to Greggory Savelio’s. Even more, the car which Joseph Thomas was in when he was arrested was an exact match to my suspect’s vehicle.
The next day I traveled to Richmond County and interviewed Joseph Thomas. He denied having anything to do with my murder case. In fact, he gave the name of his girlfriend as an alibi.
On October 30 I interviewed Thomas’ girlfriend. At first, she denied any involvement with the murder. That was until I asked her what year she had graduated Columbia High School. The t-shirt we had recovered from the crime scene was hers. She had lent it to Joseph Thomas on the day of the murder. After confronting her with this, she finally confessed. She was driving the car when Thomas had committed the murder. Thomas had intended to rob Savelio but shot him without taking a thing.
Joseph Thomas was convicted for the murder of Greggory Savelio on September 20, 2013. It was starting to look like this case was going to go cold, but all it took was one person willing to tell what they knew and the whole case fell into place. I’m glad that I could give that small bit of closure to Greggory’s family.
