CLARKSVILLE, TN (CLARKSVILLE NOW) – Friends of Justin Sawyer, who went missing Dec. 17 and is believed to have been killed as part of a robbery, will be holding a candlelight vigil for him on March 13.
The vigil will begin at 4 p.m. at the Cumberland Riverwalk, 540 N. Riverside Drive, and the family asks that attendees bring candles and white balloons.
Praying to bring him home
Sawyer was first reported missing on Dec. 19. On Jan. 5, the Clarksville Police Department announced Sawyer’s car had been recovered.
Investigations led by the Clarksville Police Department and Kentucky State Police resulted in the arrests of three men in early January: Dawuan Davis, 20, of Clarksville; Marquell Devont’e Sims, 22, of Oak Grove, Kentucky; and Gene “Doug” Henry, 36, also of Oak Grove.
Henry told investigators Sawyer was dead when Davis arrived to his location.
Friends and family of Sawyer’s gathered on Feb. 6 to search areas in Oak Grove and Hopkinsville, Kentucky, which resulted in the finding of a blanket on the side of Guthrie Road south of Elkton, Kentucky. But that didn’t pan out.
“The blanket was not related,” KSP Detective Brandon McPherson told Clarksville Now this week. “It was actually an animal or pet blanket. It had dog feces all over it.”
Henry was indicted by the grand jury on Feb. 12 in Christian County on charges of abuse of a corpse and tampering with physical evidence, according to court records obtained by Clarksville Now. The grand jury has not returned indictments yet for Sims or Davis in Christian County, but all three men have a court hearing on March 3.
As of Feb. 23, Sawyer’s body has still not been located.
Remembering, but not giving up
Summer Morales-Torres and Alicya Campbell, along with three other friends of Sawyer’s, organized the vigil. The group grew close during the summer of 2020, and they said they needed a way to honor Sawyer’s memory.
“So for a while now, it’s probably been a couple weeks, my friends and I have gotten together and done our own prayers, and we just came up with an idea that prayer is very powerful and the more energy and more people that pray, the more powerful it will be,” Morales-Torres, 22, said.
“If we could get the people of Clarksville and the people that love Justin to come together and just pray for peace and to pray to bring him back home and properly lay him to rest to show him the love and respect that he deserves, that is the purpose of this all,” she continued.
While the vigil will honor Sawyer’s memory, both added that the importance of bringing him home should not be forgotten.
“We’ve wanted something for so long, like just a memorial for him, something to remember by. Something to actually say goodbye to pay our respects to him,” Campbell, 20, said.
“Justin was a protector. He was very protective of the people he cared about. He was very smart, very wise. He didn’t act like normal 19- or 20-year-olds,” Morales-Torres said.
She recalled a time last summer that her car tire popped, and she called Sawyer for help and he showed up within 10 minutes to assist her.
Campbell said long talks with Sawyer in his car were some of her best memories. In particular, the pair would get out of the car to watch nearby deer.
“Right after he went missing, probably three or four days, I went to go talk to Summer and Shane for the first time since everything happened, and it was at the home (Sawyer) and Shane lived in with Shane’s mom. I got out of my car to go walk down there, and I just got out of my car and looked up from my phone and I saw six deer just staring at me. I think that was him,” Campbell said through tears.
Search for closure
While the vigil will honor Sawyer’s memory, both added the importance of bringing him home should not be forgotten.
“Yes, this is us saying goodbye to (Sawyer), but at the same time, we’re not giving up, and we’re bringing him home,” Campbell said.
Sawyer’s family will travel to Tennessee to attend.
“His immediate family is coming, there might be some friends coming from Georgia. It’s centered around prayer, basically just trying to keep his face out there to see if anyone remembers anything,” Sawyer’s aunt, Angela Belcher, said.
“He’s trying to talk to us. He’s trying to help us and we just really need everybody to pray about this,” Campbell said.