It was a bright Sunday morning on May 31st, 2015, in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
A pedestrian walking past a parking garage heard a loud explosion — and saw a man running away from the lot. Then he saw the smoldering hunk of a Honda Acura inside the garage.
Firefighters and police — to their relief — could find no victim inside the car.
But why did someone set it on fire? There had to be a reason...
The registered owner was 42-year-old Dwayne Demkiw.
His friends had just seen him at a birthday party the night before, but he left early to pull a shift at his limo service job.
He said he would come back after his shift, but they never saw him again.
They found out through Dwayne’s father that his car had been found on fire in Calgary.
They called him over and over, but Dwayne never answered the phone.
He was originally reported as a missing person. But by June 4, 2015, the police knew it was time to switch gears.
By that point, they had determined that something much worse had happened to Dwayne...
This was a homicide.
To find out what happened to Dwayne, watch the full episode, “The Case of the Man with No Name” on Peacock now.
The episode is also available to watch in the NBC app and to listen to on our podcast.
After you finish the episode, watch Dwayne’s friends and family remember him as a free-spirited, kind man.
Plus, listen to the Talking Dateline episode with Keith Morrison and Josh Mankiewicz, where they take you behind-the-scenes of the making of the episode.
You can also watch Detective Lawrence Liu of the Vancouver Police Department talk about the current state of the investigation into the disappearance of the real Robert Aubrey-Maxwell.
