In the spring of 2017, a young man named Marty William McMillan, Jr., aged 22, embarked on what he believed was a promising new chapter in his life. Having recently secured a job in the construction industry and purchased a car, he was, by his mother's account, 'doing the right things.' His life, however, took a tragic and unforeseen turn on the night of April 22, when he arranged to meet a woman he had connected with on the dating website Plenty of Fish.
After watching a basketball game with a friend, McMillan drove his black Volkswagen Passat to an apartment on Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue in Southeast Washington, D.C., for the planned date, from which he would never return.
For months, McMillan's family anxiously awaited news of his whereabouts, at times feeling that the police investigation lacked the urgency his case deserved. Their worst fears were realized in October 2017, when human remains were discovered in a wooded area off Suitland Parkway in Forestville, Maryland. The remains were later identified as those of Marty McMillan, Jr., and in January 2018, the Chief Medical Examiner in Baltimore officially ruled his death a homicide caused by multiple gunshot wounds.
The investigation into McMillan's disappearance and murder eventually uncovered a grim narrative. Police determined that the woman McMillan had arranged to meet was Shaniah Davis, who lived with her boyfriend, John Jabar McRae. Authorities believe that McMillan was killed inside their apartment. Court documents suggest that McRae may have become suspicious that his girlfriend was cheating on him and returned home to find McMillan there. Another theory, proposed by McMillan's mother, is that her son was lured to the apartment with the intention of being robbed.
In April 2018, nearly a year after McMillan's disappearance, police arrested 40-year-old John Jabar McRae and charged him with second-degree murder while armed. Later, in October of the same year, 22-year-old Shaniah Davis was also arrested and indicted on three counts of being an accessory after the fact to murder. It was alleged that Davis lied to the police, helped to hide and destroy evidence, and cleaned the crime scene. In May 2024, John Jabar McRae was sentenced to 16 years in prison for voluntary manslaughter and tampering with evidence. Shaniah Davis pleaded guilty to conspiracy to obstruct justice and attempted tampering with evidence and was set to be sentenced in May 2024.
