Athens police close murder-suicide case

By Rhonda Cook

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Police said there will be no public explanation of why an Athens man killed his girlfriend -- the mother of his three children -- and then himself Thursday afternoon.

“This case is closed as far as we’re concerned,” Capt. Clarence Holeman of the Athens-Clarke County Police Department said Friday.

Holeman said he was “not going to go into” what led to the murder-suicide. “It’s a personal thing,” Holeman said. “I don’t think the public needs to know. There are three kids left behind.”

He said, however, that the children did not witness either of the shootings; they and their grandmother were visiting relatives in North Carolina.

Their father, Michael Wise, became the focus of a manhunt Thursday after the body of their mother, 20-year-old Kendra Borders, was found in a Ford Explorer in the parking lot of a south Athens shopping center near a remote area of the UGA campus.

Law enforcement officers concentrated their search for Wise on the southern end of UGA campus after witnesses said they saw the 25-year-old man dart into some woods near the university’s golf course. Police sealed that section of the campus and the university sent an electronic alert just before 3 p.m., asking students, faculty and staff to "please stay away from this area."

University spokesman Tom Jackson said while some classes in the nearby agricultural building were canceled, the rest of the campus remained open.

But as police looked for Wise in Athens, he was driving in nearby Oglethorpe County. Police said Wise shot himself around 3:30 p.m. when an officer stopped his car.

Around 4 p.m., UGA sent another electronic message that the campus was safe.