Not much is known about Colin Douglas Millick other than he was bearen to death in Florala in 2003.

No one knows how the 56-year-old, wanted for violating his probation in Orange County, Fla., found his way to the rental house that once stood at the intersection of Seventh and Tenth streets. Police don’t know why Millick was murdered that Dec. 16.

But someone does.

This case is like others in the county – a crime where leads have grown cold and the perpetrators have gone unpunished. Since the Covington County District Attorney’s Office announced a 15-member cold case task force was conducting an active investigation earlier this month, The Star-News is giving exposure to some of those unsolved cases.

As for Millick’s murder, Star-News archives revealed little information other than the property owner called 911 on Dec. 16 to report his tenant’s death.

“It was the worse scene I’ve ever seen,” said then-Florala Police Chief Lamar Mitchell. Mitchell, who was the first officer on the scene, has since retired, but he remembers that day vividly.

“It was just gruesome; the bloodiest house I’ve ever seen,” he said. “No small town is immune to murder; quite frankly, it was a bloody mess. I’m sure they used something to beat him, but I couldn’t imagine what he’d been beaten with.

“When I got in the door, I just backed out,” he said. “I knew it was more than we could handle.”

And by “we,” Mitchell meant the police department, which at the time didn’t have a full-time investigator on staff.

“We didn’t have any resource to handle that,” he said. “We could’ve bagged some evidence, but collecting DNA or that, no. Not us.”

Mitchell contacted the Covington County Sheriff’s Office, who, in turn, contacted the Alabama Bureau of Investigation. Throughout the years, police have consistently worked leads but have been unable to make an arrest.

Mitchell said he’d seen Millick around town before his death.

“He drank a lot,” Mitchell said of Millick. “I don’t think I arrested him, but he was a drunk. But still he didn’t deserve to die like that.”

A Google search revealed that – even in death – Millick remains a wanted man by police; however, at the time of his death, he was unwanted by his family, who refused to claim his body after he abandoned them decades earlier.

His remains were laid to rest in a pauper’s grave at the backside of Andalusia Memorial Cemetery. Aside from the minister, Mitchell was the only person in attendance.

“It was gruesome the way he died,” he said. “That was the reason I went to the funeral. No one was there but the minister who said few words. I remember it was very cold that day, rainy, cold, cold. Sad, all the way around.”

Anyone with any information about Millick’s death is asked to contact ABI at (334) 353-1100.