Cold case in Garner moves forward, officer named person of interest

A Four Oaks police officer has emerged as a person of interest in the 2004 killing of Garner teenager Josh Davis, and the development has shaken Davis’s family after more than two decades without answers. The case, which long sat cold in Wake County, is moving again after a tip and follow-up work by the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation and Garner police.

Davis was 16 when he died on Jan. 6, 2004, after walking in a Garner residential neighborhood with his cousin near Hall Boulevard. State investigators say the cousin briefly returned to a relative’s house, then came back to find Davis bleeding on the side of the road. The SBI now lists the case as an unsolved homicide and a Capital District case. Garner police reopened attention to the death in January and treated it as a homicide investigation.

The new scrutiny centered on a Four Oaks Police Department officer. Four Oaks Police Chief Stephen Anderson said on April 20 that the officer had been placed on administrative leave while the investigation continued. As of April 23, the officer had not been charged. Investigators searched the officer’s Benson home on March 31 and seized an iPhone and laptop. They also revisited a tip first provided by the officer’s former spouse in 2010 and interviewed the officer in September 2025 before the search.

For Davis’s mother, Judy Creech, the latest development carried both shock and hope. Creech said the officer and her son knew each other and added, “They were friends.” She said she was stunned to learn the officer had signed the guest book at her son’s funeral, a detail that makes the case feel even more personal after 22 years of waiting. Creech said the slow pace of the investigation has been disappointing, but she also credited bloggers and crime enthusiasts for helping keep attention on the case until investigators pushed ahead on the newer lead.

Davis’s sister, Alyssa Hatcher, also has pressed for answers, posting publicly and asking the driver who hit and killed her brother to come forward. The case remains a painful reminder that a teen’s death in a quiet Garner neighborhood, less than 10 miles from downtown Raleigh, can linger for years without resolution. Garner has grown into a town of more than 45,000 residents, but for the Davis family, the question has stayed the same since 2004: who hit Josh Davis, and why has it taken so long to find out?