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2 missing rappers, friend found dead in abandoned Detroit apartment building after canceled hip-hop show

Police had been searching for rappers Armani Kelly and Dante Wicker, as well as friend Montoya Givens, for two weeks after they went missing on January 21

DETROIT, MICHIGAN: The deaths of three missing men from Oscoda and Melvindale who came to Detroit for a show were discovered under a pile of debris in a vacant Highland Park apartment building in Detroit, Michigan, according to two police sources familiar with the investigation. Police had been searching for rappers Armani Kelly and Dante Wicker, as well as friend Montoya Givens, for two weeks after they went missing on January 21.

The men's corpses were discovered by investigators on Thursday, February 2, in the North course Apartments complex near Palmer Park in Detroit's Highland Park neighborhood. Three victims were discovered inside the apartment complex underneath piles of debris, according to Michigan State Police 1st Lt Mike Shaw, who also reported that as of 6 pm, the remains hadn't yet been taken out of the property.

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However, Shaw did not confirm whether the remains were to the three missing males, but two Detroit police sources familiar with the case confirmed the bodies belonged to Kelly, 27, Wicker, 31, and Givens, 31, reported The Detroit News. "It's supposed to be abandoned, but there's a lot of squatters in there," Shaw said of the big complex near Log Cabin and McNichols.

Michigan State Police tweeted on Thursday, "Members of the Homicide Task Force, Metro South Post, and the MSP Forensic lab are currently at an abandoned apartment complex on the corner of McNichols and Log Cabin in Highland Park on a death investigation. The MSP tweet continued, "Multiple victims were located in the building. They have not been identified at this time. Detectives are currently obtaining search warrants to search the building and recover the victims. We will continue to update here as the investigation progresses."

What happened to Montoya Givens, Armani Kelly and Dante Wicker?

A birthday party for Kelly, an Oscoda rapper who went by the stage name Marley Whoop, was scheduled to take place at Lounge 31 in Gratiot on January 21, however, the performance was postponed. The night of the Lounge show, Kelly informed his fiancee that the performance had been postponed due to an equipment malfunction. Kelly then made plans to network with others and discover open mic opportunities. However, Taylor Perrin, Kelly's fiancee, claims that after 7.30 pm, texts, calls, and Facebook messages remained unanswered. In addition, Wicker, a rapper from Melvindale who goes by the stage name "B12," was also slated to perform at the Lounge 31 event, as reported by The US Sun.

Cat Fogle, Givens' mother, said police notified her about the discovery around 4.30 pm on Thursday, February 2. "They told me they found the three bodies. ... I don't know what I'm going to do; how I'm going to bury him," Fogle said. Whereas, Lorrie Kemp, Kelly's mother, stated that police informed her that three bodies had been discovered, "but they didn't identify them."

What do the police have to say?

According to the police, Kelly picked up Givens and Wicker en route to the concert. After then, Kelly's car was discovered parked the wrong way in the Queen's Court apartment building in Warren. According to the investigators, the license plate location was coated in dirt and the plate was removed. The investigation is being conducted by the Detroit Police Mobile Command Center, Michigan State Police units, and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives.

MEAWW earlier reported, Kelly was the first rapper who was reported missing to Oscoda police on January 22 after his mother, Lorrie Kemp, had not heard from him. "The mother of one of the victims, the next day, made a report of the missing person. That mother became very proactive in the investigation and started searching for her son's vehicle through OnStar,” Michael McGinnis of the Detroit Police Department's major crimes unit said. The mother discovered the vehicle in Warren, Michigan, and the police picked it up there on January 23. By January 27, news of Kelly's disappearance had reached all media outlets.

McGinnis said, "Once that happens, other family members of the other missings come to realize that that's a friend of their loved ones and they haven't seen them either, so then they both get reported missing." Kelly’s mother has posted flyers all around Lansing, where Kelly grew up, in an attempt to find her son. She said, “I don’t want to be on ‘Dateline’ in 20 years to find his body.”