Roy Sullivan, 38, a Black man, died on October 25, 2017, in Memphis, Tennessee, his life ending at an address that would later be recorded in the paperwork of a case that still doesn’t have a name attached to it besides his.
The place tied to the killing was 712 Tanglewood Street, a Midtown Memphis location associated with Peabody Park and the Raymond Skinner Center, a public recreation facility that sits beside a small, neighborhood green space with paths and pavilions—ordinary
amenities that make the violence feel even more out of place.
In the record that catalogs the case, the offense is listed simply as murder, with the cause left unknown. The suspect field is just as stark—unknown—while the case status remains unsolved under the Memphis Police Department. The entry points anyone with information toward the department’s tip line, a quiet acknowledgment that the answers investigators needed then are the same ones they need now.
In the days that followed, the only public outline of his passing came through funeral notices: he was mourned in Memphis and services were handled through N.J. Ford and Sons Funeral Home. Beyond that, the official trail narrows back to the same unresolved facts—an October death, a specific address, and a case waiting for a break that has not yet arrived.
