Three Detroit-area rappers have been missing for 11 days
No one has heard from Kelly since, and two of his friends, Dante Wicker and Montoya Givens, have also been reported missing. Police in Detroit and several nearby jurisdictions are searching for the trio they believe were at the bar together prior to the event’s cancellation.
“What we don’t know exactly is what happened from that point forward,” Detroit Police Chief James White told reporters Tuesday.
Warren, Michigan police found the car Kelly was driving in a parking lot about five miles from Lounge 31 – the men were nowhere to be found. Officials said they were investigating whether any of the men had any connection to the location.
Equally concerning, police said, the men’s cellphones had remained silent since their disappearance and their social media pages had gone silent.
Lorrie Kemp, Kelly’s mother, told local news outlets that she was desperately trying to find her son, using OnStar to track the car he was driving and handing out flyers to people on the street.
“I’m doing everything I can,” she told Detroit-based television network WXYZ. “I’m out there, going onto the street, onto the sidewalk.”
Reporting on Kelly’s disappearance spurred the families of Wicker and Givens, both 31, to realize they hadn’t heard from loved ones either, police said. Wicker’s family reported him missing Friday, and Given’s family did the same the next day.
Although officials believe Kelly, Wicker and Givens were all at the bar, they said it’s unclear if the friends went together. Lounge 31 representatives did not immediately respond to a request for an interview.
“The fact that the three are missing together is very concerning and very alarming to us,” the Detroit Police Chief said. Michael McGinnis told reporters on Monday.
Detroit police said they called in their homicide team and cold case team to investigate all possibilities in the case. On Tuesday, White was reluctant to release further details.
“The case is wide open and extremely active and I have to proceed very cautiously at the moment,” he said.
Kelly’s fiancee, Taylor Perrin, told the Detroit News that Kelly was recently released from prison on armed robbery charges. He attended college classes, worked, pursued his rap hobbies, and planned his marriage to Perrin, who had met him as a teenager.
“It doesn’t look good how many days he has left, but I won’t give up until I see his face again,” Perrin told the Detroit News. “…We were so close to being able to start our lives, and someone just took everything away.”
Kemp also worries that her son may not be alive, Detroit-based television network WDIV reported. If that’s the case, she said, she wants to put him to rest as soon as possible to get a degree.
“I’ll never see that beautiful smile,” Kemp told the TV network. “He’ll never fight me again. He will never sleep in bed with me again. And I know someone knows something.”
