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'Very alarming': Search on for 3 missing men after canceled Detroit performance

Posted at 10:58 PM, Jan 30, 2023
and last updated 2023-01-31 09:19:54-05

DETROIT (WXYZ) — The search is on for three men who vanished before they were scheduled to perform at a club in Detroit.

Detroit police say Montoya Givens, Armani Kelly and Dante Wicker were all traveling to the show together when it was allegedly canceled. Their phones were shut off shortly after and no one could reach them.

The men were set to perform at Lounge 31. Detroit police are still trying to figure out whether they actually made it to the club.

Kelly's mom was the first to report her son missing. She put missing person flyers up and down 7 Miles and Gratiot Avenue near the club.

"I don't want to be on 'Dateline' in 20 years to find his body," Lorrie Kemp said.

One of Kelly's missing person flyers now sits in a pizza shop window in north Lansing.

"This is our home. That's why we came here," Kemp said. "We did all these areas, we are just now finishing up."

Kemp has been physically searching for her son since he went missing.

Kelly is a rapper and he came to Detroit on Jan. 21 to perform at Lounge 31. His fiance says he texted her to say it was canceled. Then, he stopped answering his phone.

"Monday rolls around and we still hadn't heard from him and that's when she went to file a police report. And I drove four hours to pick her up and three hours to Detroit," Kelly's fiance Taylor Perrin said.

Kemp was forced to file a report in Osceoda because that's where she last saw her son.

When she tracked his car using OnStar, she realized it had moved three times in the city of Warren. It ultimately was found at a condo complex by police.

"I am doing everything I possibly can and I am out there hitting the roads, hitting the pavement," Kemp said. "Where is the police department. They didn't do their job."

Kemp feels like her cries were ignored until police agencies in multiple jurisdictions including Detroit realized two other men — Dante wicker and Montoya Givens — were also missing.

“The fact that the three of them are missing together is very concerning and very alarming for us,” said Michael McGinnis, commander of Major Crimes with the Detroit Police Department.

Kemp thinks her son may have been set up by somebody he met behind bars.

"I am angry because you did eight years in prison and you didn't die," Kemp said. "And then you get out and they kill you — he's dead."

"I love that people have hope, but I know in my gut, I am the mother," Kemp added.

Perrin says she's holding onto hope.

"I can't think like that. I can and I do, but I will not believe it until I see proof," Perrin said.

Kemp says Kelly was starting community college and working to get a house with his fiance.

"What bothers me the most is he had his whole life ahead of him," Kemp said.

McGinnis said that all three of their phone records stop having activity the evening of Jan. 21 or early morning hours of Jan. 22.

Investigators are now trying to work backward to figure out what happened to them.