NORTH LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (KTHV) -- After more than 25 years of dormancy, the case of a missing North Little Rock man is being reopened by police--this time as a homicide.
In 1987, then 23-year-old Dwayne Martin disappeared after telling his mom he was going to work; she hasn't seen or heard from him since.
The North Little Rock Police Department (NLRPD) has cold case officers that will look through closed cases, reopening ones that seem extra peculiar. To them, the idea that a 23-year-old ex-Marine mysteriously disappeared was enough to warrant a second look.
“This is what you always think about, but you never want to happen,” said Martin’s mother Brenda Brown. “His quote was, ‘We were born to die’. And, when I think about him not being here, I always think about him saying ‘We were born to die’.”
Martin was the first of three sons Brown would lose.
“I can hear the wind blow during the fall and the winter seasons,” she said. “I get jittery; I get nervous because these are the things that were happening during the time in which I first started seeking and searching for him.”
On December 11 of 1987, her son Dwayne went to work his job at a local diner.
“He was among friends, or among people he thought to be his friends,” she said recalling the events preceding her son’s disappearance. “It still hurts just as bad today as it did then."
At the time, police traced Martin's last location to the Shorter Garden Apartment complex in North Little Rock. They said he went there after cashing a $148 paycheck in Sherwood.
“The person that he worked for—that owned Rob's Place—said it was very unlike him not to show up for work,” said NLRPD spokesman Sgt. Brian Dedrick.
They never found a body, declaring it a cold case. Twenty-nine years passed before the department decided to give it another look this past December.
“When I first looked at this case, I was like ‘How nice would it be provide information to this mom, who for 30 years has not known what happened to her son?’” Dedrick said
“Somebody still cares,” she said. “It wasn't in vain. We still are looking, we still are seeking, we still are searching, and we're going to close this.”
Police haven't formally named any people of interest but said since reopening the case, more clues are surfacing. Recently, NLRPD announced a $1,500 reward for any information leading to an arrest in this case.
If anyone has information about Dwayne Martin's case, please call the NLRPD at (501) 812-2591.