Friday, December 20, 2019

The Disappearance and Murder of Silling Man


19 year-old Silling Man was found dead inside a closed down mall in Gwinnett County, Georgia on December 21st, 2017. Prior to her death, Silling lived with her uncle in Lawrenceville. She was enrolled in school, but had not signed up for classes for the spring semester. She was initially reported missing on October 8th, 2017. The circumstances of her disappearance are unclear, but she returned home shortly after her case as assigned to an investigator. She vanished again on October 10th, 2017. For unknown reasons, a missing persons report was not filed this time.
It was later confirmed that Silling picked up her last paycheck from a Michael Kors store on November 20th, 2017—over a month after she was last seen by her family. Due to company privacy policies, the store manager is unable to release information about their interactions with Silling. Other than this, investigators initially had very little information about what Silling was doing between the day she went missing and her death. After she finally was found on December 21st, investigators determined that she had already been dead for two weeks.
Police did not immediately announce whether or not Silling’s death was a murder. At first, they were unable a link between her and the vacant mall where she was found. Investigators were also unsure if Silling died at the mall, or if she was moved to the mall after her death. They did, however, determine that there were no drugs in her system at the time of her death. There was a small amount of alcohol, but not enough to be fatal. There were also no immediate obvious signs of trauma on her body.
Almost six months later, in June 2018, police made an arrest in the case. Silling’s boyfriend, 21 year-old Emmett Davis was charged with aggravated assault and felony murder in Silling’s case. Police  then announced their speculation that Silling’s relationship with Emmett played a role in her running away from her family’s home in October 2017. It is believed that the two were living together in various hotels around Gwinnett County prior to Silling’s death. After his arrest, it was revealed that Emmett was interview several times after Silling’s body was found but did not have enough evidence to charged him early on into the investigation. Eventually, police were able to obtain warrants and subpoenas for phone records after Silling’s’ lab results returned.

Investigators have not revealed what specifically they found to charge Emmett with murder, but they believe that Emmett killed Silling inside the abandoned mall where she was eventually found. It is still unclear why Emmett and Silling were inside the vacant mall when she was murdered. However, investigators believe that Silling died by asphyxiation. According to the Gwinnett County police spokesman, Silling’s chest was “restricted to the point where she couldn’t breathe, as if someone sat on her.”


Emmett Davis

After Silling’s body was identified, Emmett went to New York where he spent the following months until he returned to Georgia in May 2018. Upon his return, he was arrested for Silling’s murder and is being held in a Gwinnett County jail.

No comments:

Post a Comment