In the late summer of 2018, a 64-year-old woman named Deborah Reynolds vanished from the streets of Detroit, leaving her family engulfed in a silent storm of worry. Her disappearance began under unsettling circumstances in the early hours of August 3rd, when Ferndale police encountered her and a man named DeAngelo Martin. Both appeared to be intoxicated, and instead of being taken into custody, they were transported by the officers and left at a gas station in Detroit.
This would be the last time Deborah was seen alive by authorities.
Weeks turned into agonizing months for Deborah's family, who reported her missing and relentlessly sought answers. Their worst fears began to materialize as a string of gruesome discoveries of deceased women in abandoned houses on Detroit's east side pointed to the work of a serial killer. The name DeAngelo Martin soon surfaced as the prime suspect in these murders. The Reynolds family’s dread intensified as they connected Martin to Deborah’s last known moments.
In December 2018, their search came to a tragic end when human remains were found in a vacant home, less than a mile from where the police had left Deborah and Martin. The condition of the body was such that immediate identification was not possible. It wasn't until October 2019 that the Wayne County Medical Examiner's Office confirmed the remains were those of Deborah Reynolds. The cause of her death could not be definitively determined due to the state of her remains.
DeAngelo Martin was subsequently charged with the murders of four other women and is considered a suspect in Deborah Reynolds' death, though he has not been formally charged in her case. The investigation into her death remains ongoing. In the wake of this tragedy, Deborah's family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the Ferndale police officers involved, alleging their negligence contributed to her death by leaving her in the company of a dangerous individual.
Another violent death in Detroit that has left a family searching for justice is that of 15-year-old Michael Reynolds. On a summer night in July 2012, Michael was sitting on his front porch in Southwest Detroit with friends when a silver car pulled up and shots were fired. Michael was fatally wounded in what police suspected was a gang-related drive-by shooting, an assertion his family questioned. An 18-year-old friend was also injured in the attack but survived. Despite appeals to the public and a reward for information, no arrests have been announced in the case, leaving the murder of Michael Reynolds an unsolved wound in the city's history.
