A family wants justice after a D.C. man was found murdered months after he disappeared. Mark Segraves reports there are new clues in the investigation and surprising details about the man’s final hours.
On the night of April, 22, 2017, Marty McMillan Jr. was at home in Prince George's County, Maryland, watching the NBA playoffs.
Hours later, the 22-year-old was shot to death in the home of an apparent stranger in Washington, D.C., after he arranged to see a woman he met on a dating website.
Who shot him and why remain a mystery. But court records obtained by News4 give new clues about what happened to McMillan in his final hours.
Police believe McMillan saw three people the night he was killed: Shinayah Davis, her live-in boyfriend John McRae and their friend Rayshawn Wallace, who lived next door.
Body of local man missing since April has been found. Family says police identified body found in PG County in October as Marty McMillan Jr. Family still looking for answers as to what happened. pic.twitter.com/gY1ALg0eyc
— Mark Segraves (@SegravesNBC4) January 11, 2018
According to court documents, McRae, 40, told detectives Davis, 20, was known to set people up for robberies.
She told police McMillan had come to her apartment early the morning of April 23 and that McRae shot him there. McRae and his brother then dumped McMillan's body near the highway, court documents say.
While Davis, McRae and Wallace each have been charged with crimes and each have told police they had knowledge of the killing of McMillan, they have not been charged in his disappearance or death.
D.C. police and the U.S. Attorney's Office for D.C. declined to comment on the case, citing an ongoing investigation.
Evidence that police are now examining includes cellphone records, fingerprints found in McMillan's car, the records of a court-ordered GPS monitor and a bed sheet found by a cadaver-sniffing dog.
Six months would pass before his remains would be found near Interstate 495 on Oct. 30. Another two months would pass before police would tell his family on Jan. 9, 2018 that the remains were his.
Days after McMillan and his roommate watched basketball on TV together, no one had heard from him. His family knew he was in trouble because he had never gone so long without talking to them.
When McMillan vanished, he had just started a new job as an electrician, and his grandmother had just bought him a 2003 Volkswagen Passat.
His family reported him missing, and D.C. police began investigating.
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A license-plate reader provided one of their first clues in the case. Someone drove McMillan's car on April 28 -- six days after he disappeared -- on East Capitol Street SE near Benning Road NE.
Four days later, on May 2, a license-plate reader spotted his car again, just a block away, on East Capitol Street SE near Texas Avenue SE.
Two days later, police had another clue; McMillan's grandmother found his car parked in the 5800 block of Foote Street NE. There were no signs the car had been broken into. And there were no signs of McMillan.
But police found fingerprints inside the car, belonging to Rayshawn Wallace.
Police did not tell McMillan's family much, his grandmother said. The case still was classified as a missing-person investigation.
Messages McMillan exchanged with a woman he met on the dating website Plenty of Fish provided other clues. Cellphone records show McMillan exchanged messages with someone using a phone registered to Shinayah Davis. They exchanged messages several times between 10 p.m. April 22 and midnight April 23.
Police interviewed Davis on May 10 but she told them she didn't know McMillan and had lost her phone, court documents show.
Detectives were suspicious of Davis in part because shortly after McMillan disappeared, her family reported her missing, too. She showed up a few days later.
Records from a court-ordered GPS monitor gave detectives the next set of clues. Wallace, whose fingerprints were found in McMillan's car, was wearing the monitor. GPS data showed he was in the same location as the car on April 28 and May 2.
The block where McMillan's grandmother found his car is a block where Wallace, 20, once lived.
The next clues came on June 1. Davis, the woman thought to have messaged with McMillan, met with investigators a second time. In that interview, she said she knew Wallace and that he lived in the apartment building next to hers.
On June 29, police searched Wallace's apartment as well as Davis', both in the 2600 block of Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue SE. Davis shared the apartment with her boyfriend, John McCrae.
The searches yielded even more clues.
At Wallace's apartment, which he shared with his grandmother, police found a handgun with Wallace's fingerprint on it and ammunition in a red suitcase.
Wallace told police he didn't know McMillan and had never seen his car, though Wallace's fingerprints were found on it inside and out. After further questioning, police say Wallace changed his story. He then said he did remember McMillan's Volkswagen Passat and that he had washed it.
Next door at Davis and McRae's apartment, police say they found more clues: a rifle, a 9mm Glock handgun loaded with 18 rounds, more ammunition, three vials containing 2 ounces of the drug PCP and $200 in cash. They also found several cellphones, including the phone Davis said she lost.
Davis and McRae were both arrested on gun and drug charges.
Police took forensic evidence from their apartment including wood planks from the floor to test for blood.
The most gruesome piece of evidence they found in the apartment was a crumpled bed sheet a cadaver-sniffing dog found under Davis' bed.
Months passed by, and there was still no sign of McMillan. Then, on Oct. 30, police had another clue. U.S. Park Police found human remains on Suitland Parkway, between I-495 and the ramp to the north gate of Joint Base Andrews. Sources told News4 that when the remains were found, the body had no clothes.
McMillan's family had the feeling the remains were his.
The next day, Oct. 31, Wallace was arrested on weapons charges.
Meanwhile, McRae decided to cooperate with police and take a plea deal on the drug and gun charges he faced. According to court documents, he said he got the handgun from Wallace and that he had seen Wallace driving a car similar to McMillan's.
He also said his girlfriend, Davis, was known to set people up for robberies.
On Dec. 21, Davis was arrested on a bench warrant after she failed to appear in court for the drug charges she faced. Again, investigators interviewed her. This time, police say she admitted to lying about having not met McMillan. She said she had met him and had lied because she was afraid of what McRae -- her boyfriend -- would do to her and her family.
According to police, Davis then said that McMillan had come to her apartment early the morning of April 23 and that McRae shot him there. He and his brother then dumped McMillan's body near the highway, court documents say.
The GPS monitor Wallace was wearing placed him in the area where McMillan was killed.
Police learned that the gun found in Davis and McRae's apartment had been stolen in December 2016. Surveillance video shows someone stealing the gun. Police say they believe that suspect was McMillan, four months before he was killed.
As 2017 came to an end, McMillan's case was still a missing-person case, though court records show that as early as June, investigators believed McMillan had been killed in Davis and McRae's apartment.
McMillan's family was still in the dark.
Then, two days before what would have been McMillan's 23rd birthday, police told his family the remains they found were his. They classified the case as a homicide.
McRae pleaded guilty to possession of PCP and possession of a handgun. He remains in jail and is set to be sentenced on March 1.
Wallace was released from jail pending his trial on gun charges, which is set to start May 30.
Davis was released from jail and is due in court on drug charges on Jan. 23.
