Marvin Hayes, 22, was stabbed in the 800 block of North Gilmor Street and died of his injuries. The Baltimore Sun's homicide database records his death on Wednesday, July 20, 2011. The Baltimore Police Department investigated, and the Sun's database lists the death as a homicide.
Almost nothing about the killing itself has been made public, and no news report describing it could be found. One record may offer a glimpse of who he was.
An obituary notice published through the Capital Gazette describes a Marvin Von Hayes Jr., 22, of Annapolis, who died on July 19, 2011, and says he was survived by his parents. The age and the date, one day before the date in the Sun's database, suggest it may refer to the same young man, but no source confirms that link, and it is possible the notice concerns someone else.
Because so little has been released, even the basic circumstances remain unknown to the public. The record does not say whether he was stabbed during a fight or a robbery, attacked by a stranger or by someone he knew, or hurt indoors or on the street. It does not say what time of day it happened, whether he died at the scene or later at a hospital, whether anyone saw what happened, or whether investigators ever identified a suspect.
His name has also made him hard to find. Searches for Marvin Hayes in Baltimore are dominated by a well-known local environmental advocate of the same name who runs a composting program, and articles about that man's work fill page after page of results. None of them concern the 22-year-old who died in July 2011, and his own story has been all but lost beneath them. What remains in the public record is a single line in a database: his name, his age, the block and the cause of death. Behind that line was a young man whose life had barely begun.
Gilmor Street is a long residential street of rowhouses that runs north and south across the city. The 800 block of North Gilmor is a block where neighbors may have seen or heard what happened outside that summer.
Baltimore recorded roughly 200 to 280 homicides a year between 2007 and 2014, one of the highest rates of any large American city, and many of those killings were never solved.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Marvin Hayes could be found in news archives or public records. More than 15 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who was on or near North Gilmor Street in July 2011, or who knew a 22-year-old named Marvin Hayes who may have had ties to Annapolis, may remember something that could help detectives. Even a small detail, such as a name overheard, a vehicle seen nearby or a conversation remembered, can help detectives move a case forward. Anyone with information can call Baltimore Police homicide detectives at 410-396-2100, or leave an anonymous tip with Metro Crime Stoppers of Maryland at 1-866-7LOCKUP (1-866-756-2587).
