“He just kept saying, ‘I feel like I’m next,’” says a friend and neighbor of 43-year-old Darwin Marshall who did not share her name.
Now her last conversations with the man who welcomed her to town when she moved into his apartment building on Garland in Flint haunt her.
He told her he had noticed a disturbing pattern, a pattern police would notice after his death.
He told her a mad man must have stabbed several of his innocent friends out of nowhere. He lived near them and often walked alone. He feared he would be next.
“He collapsed over here,” she said pointing to the blood-stained soil where Marshall died after she says his premonition came true.
Neighbors found Marshall in front of his apartment building around 1:30 a.m. July 26.
Within days police would hold a press conference announcing the search for a serial killer. They believed a man was driving around Genesee County searching for victims at night. He would ask them for directions or car help. Then, when they let down their guard for a moment he would start stabbing them repeatedly. Police say that serial killer is responsible for Darwin Marshall’s death.
Life has not been the same since that day for neighbors.
The friend who heard his fears says she carries binoculars so she can get a good look at anything suspicious in the distance. Her only comfort comes from what she says Darwin Marshall told her, that he had found God as he prepared, in case the killer he feared would find him ever did.
“He was seeing his kids more, reading the bible, trying to get his life together… God is good. He’s in a better place.”
