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Criminal Records - Most Wanted |
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Profile |
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Name: Unknown Donta Edwards Killer
(aliases)
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Sex: Unknown |
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Race: Unknown |
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Height: not known |
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Weight: unknown |
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Hair (Color, Description, Facial Hair): Unknown |
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Eyes (Color and Correction): Unknown |
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Other Physical Characteristics: There is no known physical description of Donta Edwards' killer. |
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Wanted for :
Murder, Detroit, MI;
Apr 15, 2007
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Location(s) |
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Last Seen : Detroit, MI
The victim was found in Detroit on the Lodge Freeway Service Drive near Collingwood. |
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Possible Location : Detroit, MI
Dayton, OH
Donta Edwards was missing from Dayton, Ohio for 14 months before police identified him as the Handless John Doe found in Detroit in April of 2007. |
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Last Known : Detroit, MI
Police are hoping to identify Donta's killer, who was last linked to the Motown dumping of the body. |
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Traits |
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The victim, Donta Edwards, was a fugitive from the FBI in Dayton, Ohio at the time of his death. |
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Donta was an alleged member of the criminal enterprise the Black Mafia Family. |
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Donta's killer may have been involved in drug trafficking. |
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Donta's killer may also be linked to the BMF. |
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Case Story |
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A Nameless Victim Found In Detroit |
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On April 15, 2007, Detroit police responding to a call made a bizarre discovery. They found a body on the side of the Lodge Freeway Service Drive near Collingwood that has turned out to be quite a mystery for them. The body was dumped on the side of the road, with no effort to conceal it, in the middle of a roadway construction site.
The body was that of a black male between the ages of 24 and 30. He was between 5'8" and 5'10" and weighed about 170-190 pounds. The victim had several distinctive tattoos, but police were not able to learn any other information about this man. That's because after he had been killed by a gunshot to his head, his hands had been cut off and he had been set on fire.
Without fingerprints to identify the victim, and with the rest of the body badly burned, it was hard to even know where to start. |
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Pieces Of A Puzzle |
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The victim was not wearing any clothes when he was found, so there were no clues to be found there. Detectives did, however, find pieces of black plastic and duct tape on the victim's arms and near the body. This made it appear that the body had been partially covered by plastic trash bags at one point.
The homicide division of the Detroit P.D. was able to develop a composite sketch showing what they believed the man had looked like before he was murdered. Detectives hoped that the sketch and John Doe's three distinctive tattoos would help to identify the victim. |
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Search For A Killer |
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A year after they launched the investigation, detectives finally got the answer. The murder victim wasidentified as 31-year-old Dayton, Ohio resident Donta Cordell Edwards.
Police say Edwards was no stranger to them and his disappearance was easily explained. Edwards was a fugitive from an FBI investigation into the drug trafficking activities of the Black Mafia Family.
Edwards' "BMF" tattoo on his neck was one of the distinctive marking cops worked with when his body was unidentified. Since the identification, it serves as a marking of what may have gotten him killed.
The Black Mafia Family is a group based out of Atlanta, Ga. that federal authorities say they have targeted and dismantled. The group, who had ties to high-profile musicians and athletes, allegedly ran a nationwide criminal drug enterprise through the coordination of street-level gangs. The BMF is accused of glorifying the high-rolling lifestyle that drug trafficking provided its leaders and members.
Police say Edwards was a local rap music producer in his hometown. He was known for producing the rap group Dope Boy Mafia and was CEO of Grownman Records. He had been missing for 14 months when police identified his body and informed his family.
Speaking with AMW, Donta's widow said that, because of his trouble with the law, they always thought he would come back home. She said she and the family found the news that he had been in a morgue, unidentified, all that time was disturbing and unexpected.
Now that cops have identified Donta, they are looking for any and all information about his activities in April 2007. They say that no detail is too small in the hunt for his killer. |
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