“I can’t describe it — it was unbelievable, but believable,” said Percell Carter, who wonders if he could have done more for his brother. Percell described James as an alcoholic who was kind and generous when sober. “It’s hard to help someone who doesn’t want it.”
This winter, as public discussions swirled about how to address homelessness, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution began researching how many people are dying from exposure to cold temperatures in metro Atlanta. The AJC spoke with officials from medical examiner’s offices and reviewed dozens of autopsy reports and investigative summaries obtained through open records requests.
Nineteen of the 32 people were found in the city of Atlanta. Others were discovered in College Park and East Point in Fulton County, and in Marietta in Cobb County. Eleven people were found in DeKalb County, including in Chamblee, Doraville, Stonecrest, Brookhaven and in unincorporated areas.
In each case, hypothermia was the sole cause of death or one of multiple causes. Twenty-four of the 32 people were Black, seven were white, and one was Hispanic. Six of the 32 were women. The average age was 59.
Officials in Clayton and Gwinnett counties said no hypothermia deaths have occurred there since the start of 2021 among people confirmed to have been homeless.
But the total of 32 deaths likely is a conservative number.
It does not include, for example, at least three people who died of hypothermia in Fulton County over the same period, because officials couldn’t determine if they were homeless. Similarly, officials in Cobb County could not conclude for certain whether a 60-year-old man found in January in a wooded area, his clothes soaked from overnight rains, had been homeless.
The family of another man, Timothy William Crowley, believes he died from cold exposure while homeless, but the autopsy is not yet finished. Crowley, 48, was found Jan. 22 at a MARTA bus stop near Riverdale and Poplar Springs roads in Clayton…
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