Charles County authorities are renewing their appeal for information in the unsolved 2013 killing of Melvin “Silk” Brown, an Indian Head man whose death has gone unanswered for 13 years.
On the night of Sept. 7, 2013, officers with the Charles County Sheriff’s Office and the La Plata Police Department responded to the area of Pomonkey Way and Popes Creek Court for a report of gunfire. They found Brown, 31, suffering from gunshot wounds; he was pronounced dead at the scene.
Brown was a father of three, described by those close to him as devoted to his family and well-known in the tight-knit Indian Head community. No arrests have been made in the case, which the sheriff’s office has classified as a cold case that detectives continue to revisit.
Charles County Crime Solvers and CCSO are offering a combined reward of up to $10,000 for information leading to an arrest — an increase from the $5,000 reward the agencies offered in the case’s earlier years. Anyone with information is asked to call Charles County Crime Solvers at 1-866-411-TIPS; tipsters can remain anonymous.
Brown’s case is one of several long-unsolved Charles County homicides the sheriff’s office has continued to publicize in recent years, including the 2008 killing of Austin Brown, also in Indian Head, and the 2012 murder of Martin Hawkins in La Plata. Not every cold case in the county has stayed unsolved — investigators used DNA technology in 2022 to close a Charles County murder that had gone unanswered for 44 years, a reminder that new leads or forensic advances can still crack decades-old cases.
