When 39 year old beloved chef Douglas Calhoun did not show up for his catering stint at the wedding venue he was hired to cater on June 2, 2017, and he was not answering his phone or returning calls for that entire day, his family and friends became extremely worried as it was unlike him not to answer or return calls.
What they did not know was that Doug had a private life that none of them were privy to. He was buying sex online and showing up to random places to take advantage of said sex he paid for online. It would take authorities 37 days and a lot of digging to get to the bottom of Doug’s disappearance.
After going through cell phone records for Doug’s late night calls, detectives dialed in on the very last call, which was made from the Detroit neighborhood of Brightmoor to an untraceable phone number. They later learned it was associated with a merchant’s website selling escort services on Backpage.
Working backwards, detectives went over every call received and made by that untraceable number, in the days leading up to Doug’s disappearance and they came across a number that belonged to a Pizza place – Crazy Joe’s Pizza which is located in the Brightmoor area. A detective then went to Crazy Joe’s where he asked if they recognized the number, and they did. They gave him the address to which they delivered pizza ordered by that number.
When detectives arrived at the house, a 17 year old girl answered the door, who at first refused to co-operate but eventually told them she’s been living in the house since March with her 27 year old boyfriend – a habitual offender name Travun Baskerville.
Armed with that information, detectives then left and secured a search warrant and went back to the house, and what they found at the house left them stunned. They found a mattress with a lot of blood looking like someone had been bleeding profusely on it. They then took the 17 year old girl in to the station for questioning, and after about 7 hours she admitted that Chef Doug was indeed at the house on the morning of June 1st. and that he didn’t make it out alive. She told them, “You may want to take a look into my boyfriend Travun Baskerville.” Travun was immediately arrested on outstanding felony warrants but was now the prime suspect in the murder of Douglas Calhoun.
DNA results later confirmed that the blood on the mattress belonged to Chef Doug, and the 17 year old agreed to tell them everything she knows in exchange for immunity. She then told them everything including where Doug’s body was located, and when detectives got to the address at an abandoned house right there in a trash bin in the garage was Doug’s body just as the teen had directed them. Doug’s body had been in the trash bin for 37 days and badly decomposed.
According to the teen, Travun had been sex slaving her against her will since she was 16, and when Doug arrived and got the oral sex service he paid for, he requested that she also allow him to penetrate her – and without a condom, which she refuse. She said Doug then got upset and requested to have his money back. But the oral sex he paid for he already got, and so upon hearing the disagreement Travun who was in another room, went into the room with his gun and ordered Doug to leave. But when Doug refused and insisted on getting his $50 back before leaving Travun shot him 3 times and he fell on the bed.
She said that Travun then paced back and forth for a few minutes wondering what to do with the body, before ordering her to help him get rid of the body, which she did because she was scared. They both then took the body and dumped it in a trash bin in the garage of an abandoned house.
Travun was then charged with first degree murder in August of 2017 which didn’t seem to phase him at his arraignment, but when the judge mentioned human trafficking he was quite alarmed. He was surprised to learn that the 17 year old victim he had held against her will since she was 16 and was prostituting for profits, told detectives about what was happening to her.
While he was in jail, Travun called the teen and was heard asking,
“Did you tell on me?”
And telling her,
“If you keep talking, you’re going to make yourself an accessory”
And those calls were recorded and entered into evidence, and that evidence was used to convict him of second degree murder and human trafficking. As the judge told him at sentencing, “there wasn’t much evidence directly linking you to the crime until you opened your own mouth on your jail call asking ‘Did you tell on me?’” which is an admission of guilt. He was sentenced to 120 years in prison.
Douglas Calhoun was an amazing chef! And from the looks of him, he seems to be an upstanding citizen. But look at the life he was living – paying for sex online and having sex with minors.
This just goes to show that you never know what people are doing outside of your presence and who they really are at their core. What they portray to you, is what they want you to see. If you want to truly know a person, you have to watch them when they don’t know you are watching, and listen to them when they do not know you are listening. And to dig deeper, track their locations, and go through their messages. Doing any combination of these will allow you to begin to know the “real” person.
This story like so many others, is very tragic, and avoidable.
And sadly, until there is no demand for trafficked humans and child prostitutes, human trafficking and forced prostitution will continue to be a thing – zero demand equals zero supply.
Leave a Reply