In 1964, 3 Gwinnett County Georgia police officers were murdered just off Arc Way near Beaver Ruin Road. Former State Revenue agent Alec Evans is one of 3 men convicted of shooting the officers when they responded to a call to investigate “suspicious” activity. There was testimony that the murderers were stripping a stolen car. Evans is still alive..in prison. One of the killers who was given immunity for his testimony is dead from natural causes. After twenty years, authorities paroled the third. I don’t know whether he’s alive. The call to the police dispatcher that warm night came from a Mr. Mills who lived in one of the few houses on the rural narrow dirt road between Beaver Ruin and Pleasant Hill Roads. Recently, a reader asked me to help him identify the scene of those murders. I have written an unpublished, copyrighted book titled “Immunity”. The title stems from one of the 3 accused killers getting immunity in exchange for testifying against the other two. Saturday, I drove down Arc Way.
After 47 years, the landscape has dramatically changed. Mr. Mills’s name is preserved by a sign at the entrance to one of the many subdivisions and apartment homes that crowd once thinly populated Arc Way. Arc Way is 1.6 miles from the intersection of Beaver Ruin and Interstate 85. The dirt road is now paved.
It ends after only .6 miles. However if you walk deeper into the woods, you can see 
a stream. An old wooden bridge that once crossed it is no longer there. It’s hard to remember the reshaped topography as it was in 1964. But I think the woods where homes now sit is where the jury believed that Evans and the two others shackled the officers, and then shot them with the officers’ own guns. Testimony from one of the murderers described the slain officers as making gurgling sounds like hogs at slaughter time. The last time I visited Evans in prison, he still was maintaining his innocence. He told me he would “fight this until the day I die.” He’s now in his eighties.
Don McClellan's half-a-century with WSB Television 
August 21, 2011 at 9:27 pm |
I was a WSB Reporter/Photographer sent to cover this story. The scene was sickening. The big question was the apparent lack of a struggle. At that time bodies were not shown on television although I believed we used a long shot of the scene where you could make out the men on the ground.
September 14, 2012 at 1:10 am |
Doubt you’ll ever see this, “Ken Cosgrove,” but can you contact me at ctestep@gmail.com?
August 22, 2011 at 11:15 pm |
Hey, I actually stay on Arc Way in the Mills Farm subdivision. I’ve been here for the past 20 years. I never heard about these murders until I came across this article. It’s very interesting. I’ve been looking to find information of the history of this road and its neighborhoods. So you’re not sure on which side of the street it happened? What information can you give me about Mr. Mills? i’m very interested in learning more. Do you remember which house was his if its even still here? Ken Cosgrove, is it possible I can get your e-mail to ask you some questions?
August 23, 2011 at 2:07 am |
Dan, A..C. Mills was a retired Railroad employee. The triple murder was in the woods on what is now the Beaver Ruin side of Arc Way.. Mills lived in a ranch style farm house. I’m guessing it was demolished to make room for the subdivision where you live.
August 23, 2011 at 4:11 am |
Do you know what year they started building the houses in the subdivision on Arc Way?
August 24, 2011 at 3:28 am |
Is it possible to find a pic of C W Mills?
August 25, 2011 at 1:23 am |
Dan it’s A.C. Mills not C.W. You might search the Gwinnett county property records for clues that would lead to Mills’ family and when a permit was approved for building the Mills Farm subdivision.