Marque Davenport was 49 years old when he was killed in Atlanta on Saturday, September 27, 2008. The Atlanta Police Department Homicide Unit investigated, and the Washington Post's homicide database, which tracked killings in Atlanta from 2007 through 2017, lists it as a homicide that remained open with no arrest. A cold-case listing gives the same date as the day his body was found.
A family death notice gives a glimpse of who he was. It identified him as Mr. Marque P.
Davenport, known as "Mark the painter," and said he "passed suddenly" on September 27, 2008. The nickname suggests he made his living as a painter, and that many people around him knew him by his trade. The notice was listed under Decatur, and it said he would be funeralized on a Saturday.
Beyond that notice, almost nothing about his life or death has been made public. No news story about the killing, memorial page or family fundraiser could be found for this account.
Because so little has been released, even the basic circumstances remain unknown to the public. The record does not say how he was killed, whether he was attacked indoors or on the street, whether he knew the person who killed him, what time of day it happened, or whether he died at the scene or later at a hospital. It does not say whether investigators ever identified a suspect.
Marque Davenport's name also appears in a 2018 Washington Post investigation that listed thousands of homicide victims across major American cities whose killings had not led to an arrest. Being on that list means that, a decade after the killing, the case was still counted among those no one had been arrested for. An online cold-case site also lists his death as an active murder case in Atlanta.
The location recorded in the Post's database places his death in east Atlanta, near the city's eastern edge and the DeKalb County line. A painter who worked in homes around the area may have been known to many clients and co-workers, any of whom may remember where he was working or whom he was with in late September 2008.
Atlanta, the capital of Georgia and the center of a metro area of more than 5 million people, recorded roughly 75 to 130 homicides a year between 2007 and 2017. Most victims in those years were young men, and most were killed with guns. Many killings from that period never led to an arrest, and the Post's 2018 investigation counted Atlanta among the cities with large numbers of unsolved homicides. At 49, he was older than most victims, and cases with few public details, like his, often faded from view quickly.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Marque Davenport could be found in news archives or public records. More than 18 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who knew "Mark the painter," hired him, worked alongside him or saw him in the days before he died may be able to help. Even a small detail, such as a name overheard, a car seen leaving the area or a conversation remembered, can help detectives move a case forward. Anyone with information can call the Atlanta Police Department Homicide Unit at 404-546-4235, or leave an anonymous tip with Crime Stoppers Greater Atlanta at 404-577-TIPS (404-577-8477), which may pay a cash reward for information that leads to an arrest.
