Julie Olson-Buchanan, left, and her daughter Beth during a happy moment in their lives. Beth, a UGA student, died in a fatal crash in 2023 in Barrow County. An Athens judge ruled this week that a man, who is the object of a nearly three-year-long manhunt, owes a family $56.5 million. Clarke County State Court Judge Charles E. Auslander issued an order on March 25 that Cesar Raudales Macias is civilly liable for the death of Beth Buchanan, a doctoral student at the University of Georgia who was killed Feb. 13, 2023, in a head-on collision. The crash occurred about 3 a.m. on Georgia Highway 316 near Winder when authorities said Macias, traveling the wrong way, slammed head on in Buchanan’s car, killing her on impact. Buchanan was driving her mother, Julie Olson-Buchanan, to an airport in Atlanta for a flight back home in California. Her mother was critically injured. In the days after the crash, Macias, who is in his 20s, and his mother disappeared. Barrow County sheriff’s investigators charged him with felony vehicular homicide and drunk driving. The sheriff’s office turned the manhunt over to the U.S. Marshal’s Southeastern Regional Fugitive Task Force. Cold Case: Man arrested 40 y
