Richard Dwane Markham, a 48-year-old Black/African American man, was found dead from a gunshot wound inside his home at 625 North 28th West Avenue in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on October 22, 2010, his death quickly ruled a homicide by police. The discovery came after a period of worrying silence. Family members, unable to reach him as they normally would, asked authorities to check on him.
When officers entered the house, they found him inside, killed by a single gunshot, turning a routine welfare check into the beginning of an unsolved murder case.
Markham’s story began in the same city where it ended. He was born on August 13, 1962, in Tulsa to Floyd Dwayne Markham and Carrie Barbra Ann Williams, part of a large family in which he was the only son among seven sisters, with two paternal brothers as well. The bonds of that family were evident in the way they moved to honor him after his death. Within days, plans were made for a funeral service at Full Gospel Outreach Ministries on October 30, 2010, giving relatives, friends, and community members a place to gather, grieve, and remember the man whose life had been abruptly taken.
Around his neighborhood, Markham was a familiar presence. Neighbors later recalled seeing him regularly, coming and going from the house throughout the day, someone whose routine movements subtly marked the rhythm of the block. One neighbor remembered him as a nice person, the kind of figure who was always just there, part of the quiet backdrop of daily life. That constancy is part of why his sudden absence was so unsettling. When days passed without the usual glimpses of him outside, without his family hearing his voice, alarm grew until the call went in to police, setting in motion the chain of events that led to the grim discovery inside his home.
The house at 625 North 28th West Avenue already carried a dark history before Markham was killed there. A neighbor recalled that, as a child, he remembered another murder in the same residence: the killing of a woman named Freda Johnson back in 1999. The knowledge that two people had been killed in that same home, more than a decade apart, deepened the sense of unease in the neighborhood. For those who lived nearby, the address became a symbol of unanswered questions and unresolved violence, a place where tragedy had struck twice without anyone ever being held to account.
For investigators, Markham’s case joined a growing list of unsolved homicides in Tulsa. The Tulsa Police Department included his killing in official unsolved-homicide materials, noting that he had been discovered inside his residence with a fatal gunshot wound and appealing to the public for information. Tip-line numbers were circulated, and authorities emphasized that a reward might be available for information leading to an arrest or conviction, an acknowledgment that they needed someone in the community to come forward with the missing piece. Yet despite the passage of years, those appeals have not led to a breakthrough. There have been no publicly reported arrests in connection with his death, and no suspect or suspects have been officially named; his homicide remains classified as unsolved.
Today, Markham’s name appears in online unsolved-homicide listings and memorial pages, a brief entry for a life that once unfolded in full detail within the streets of Tulsa. Behind that entry is the weight borne by his family, who had to plan a funeral instead of another birthday, and a neighborhood that watched the lights of patrol cars and crime-scene tape transform a familiar house into a silent reminder of questions that still do not have answers.
