Beloved Detroit chef shot in the back in late-night altercation

Travun Baskerville, found guilty in the murder of Douglas Calhoun and the human trafficking of a 17-year-old girl, received a 120-year prison sentence, WDIV reports.

Baskerville was found guilty of second-degree murder, human trafficking enterprise involving death, human trafficking of a minor for criminal sexual activity, child sexually abusive activity, possession of child sexually abusive material, felon in possession of a firearm and a felony firearms violation.

He was sentenced to 60-100 years in prison for the second-degree murder conviction and another 60-100 years in prison for the human trafficking conviction. Those sentences are to be served consecutively, meaning Baskerville won't be able to get out of prison for at least 120 years. It's a life sentence.

MORE: Detroit man gets 120 years in prison for murder of 'Chef Doug,' human trafficking of teen girl - WDIV

December 11, 2017:

In Detroit, the key to solving the mystery of what happened to a missing military veteran may have been something as simple as a pizza delivery.

Whether on a battlefield or in a bar, Douglas Calhoun could take care of himself. But one early morning in June 2017, the big guy with a personality to match mysteriously disappeared.

What cops uncovered left his family outraged and in shock.

When Doug "D.J." Calhoun walked into a room, people took notice. He was always the life of the party. D.J. was always invited -- and for a very good reason.

"It was going to be some good food," Doug's sister Dayna Phillips.

Dayna Phillips says her younger brother could turn any ordinary meal into something extraordinary. After serving his country as a U.S. Marine, D.J. returned home and started serving up his delicious cuisine.

"Before I knew it D.J. had become 'Chef Doug,'" said Doug's cousin Camilla Henderson.

Chef Doug's catering company was red hot. His food was famous throughout Detroit and beyond.

"He's traveled to different states to do weddings, very beautiful settings, very beautiful tables," Dayna Phillips tells Crime Watch Daily. "'Chef Doug' means something to him. It means something to the city."

So on June 1, 2017, when Chef Doug missed a big catering gig, his sister instantly knew something was wrong.

"His best friend calls me and says 'You talked to your brother? He's supposed to be catering for a comedy show, and the guys who are the promoters are looking for him,'" said Dayna. "I said 'Oh, well let me call you right back.'"

When Dayna couldn't get her brother to answer his phone, she texted him.

"My last text to him says 'Boy, you better call me as soon as you get this message,'" said Dayna.

But for the first time ever, her messages went unanswered. No one had heard from Chef Doug since around 3:30 in the morning.

"He calls his best friend and says 'Yeah, I'm home, and I'll talk to you tomorrow,'" said Dayna.

That phone call followed a Thursday night on the town with his buddies.

"They're having a good time, they're popping bottles and, you know, eating and drinking, and D.J. as normal is the life of the party," said Dayna.

But now it was Friday night and no one could find him. Dayna went right to police.

"It was my understanding that you had to wait 24 hours before you could make a police report, but maybe because I was so adamant about it being 'This ain't right,' they take the police report," said Dayna Phillips.

The following day, Chef Doug was supposed to fly to St. Louis to cater a wedding.

"He's not at the airport, he didn't get on the plane," said Dayna.

His cousin Camilla Henderson says that's when the family really started to panic.

Then, a troubling find: When his family used OnStar to locate his SUV, it had been abandoned in the neighborhood of Brightmoor, nowhere near his home.

"In a vacant lot in this terrible neighborhood, car doors open, hatch was opened," said Dayna.

Complete strangers joined D.J.'s family and friends to search for the popular chef.

"I couldn't keep sitting on my hands," said Dayna. "'Maybe he's somewhere under a brush of trees or something.'"

But all of the searches came up empty. Then Dayna's daughter made a startling discovery when she found her uncle's online passwords and accessed his bank account.

"She told me that his debit card was being used," said Detroit Police Homicide Detective James McDonald. "We go out to these businesses and we started looking at their surveillance footage, and we see his card being used, and it's not Douglas Calhoun."

Calhoun's family didn't know it yet, but Det. McDonald had already uncovered a big clue in the case, using the chef's cellphone records.

"We identify his last contact number and we recognize that at 3, 4 o'clock in the morning he is talking to this person, and then all of the sudden the communication stops," said Det. McDonald.

Turns out the phone call D.J. made to his best friend wasn't his last call of the night.

"That is what turned this into not a missing person, but more of a victim of a crime," said Det. McDonald.

After a night of partying with friends, Doug Calhoun is missing. But his family noticed someone had been using his credit card.

As the clock ticks, police are trying to figure out who it is before it's too late.

When the man known simply as "Chef Doug" disappeared on June 1, everyone, including police, feared the worst.

"When we found out that he missed his appointments for catering, then we knew something was wrong," said Detroit Police Det. James McDonald.

Cellphone records revealed that around 3 in the morning, the ex-Marine made a call from the Detroit neighborhood of Brightmoor. When cops trace the call, it wasn't to a person, it was to a business.

"This was a number that was affiliated with Backpage," said Det. McDonald.

Backpage is a website where people sell products and services.

"You can be anybody on Backpage, you can do anything on there, and be misleading on it," said Det. McDonald.

So there was no way tie an individual to that telephone number.

"How do we identify this number to this person when this number is connected to all these different states," said Det. McDonald.

Det. McDonald spent hours going through call logs looking at every call made or received by that Backpage number.

"I come upon a number that belongs to a pizza place called Crazy Joe's Pizza, and lo and behold, it's in the Brightmoor area," said McDonald.

The detective realizes the number called was to a pizza joint. Det. McDonald headed over, hoping someone would remember the caller.

"We get here, we walk inside and we go to an employee, and my first question is 'Hey, do you guys keep good phone records?'" said Det. McDonald.

Lucky for him, they do.

"He knew the order they called in, the day he called it in, the time they called it in, and he goes 'And we delivered it,'" said McDonald.

The phone number now had an address. Crazy Joe's delivered food to a home on Burgess Street.

But before heading over, Det. McDonald and his partner needed to come up with a story.

"I can't tell them I'm there for a homicide," said Det. McDonald.

When a young woman answered the door, the investigator says he's searching for a missing person.

"We showed her a random picture of no one significant. And all that was just to make contact with her," said Det. McDonald.

He then showed her the Backpage number and claimed his missing person had called it before disappearing.

"The look on her face was, it was blank," said Det. McDonald.

She said she didn't recognize the number. That's when the detective asked for a favor.

"I said 'Can you grab your phone, go through it, type in this number and see if a contact name pops up.' She slammed the door on my face," said Det. McDonald.

Minutes later the girl comes out and agrees to go down to the police station for questioning.

"It was more about finding out who she was, who she lived with, how long she was living there, because I wanted to establish that she was there in April," said Det. McDonald.

She tells detectives she's been living in the house since March with her boyfriend Travun Baskerville.

"Now I have enough probable cause to go back to the house with a search warrant," said Det. McDonald.

When they returned, no one was home, but the search warrant allowed cops to go inside anyway -- and what they found left them stunned.

"We find suspected blood on a mattress. A lot of blood. That suggests somebody was bleeding pretty heavily," said McDonald.

During their search, the young lady who lives at the house walked in.

"'What are you guys doing here?' I basically said 'Hey listen, we need to talk again.' And she voluntarily goes back with me," said McDonald.

After about seven hours, she admitted that Chef Doug was at the house on the morning of June 1. She also says he didn't make it out alive.

"She tells us 'You know, you might want to check into my boyfriend Travun Baskerville," said Det. McDonald.

Travun Baskerville is immediately taken into custody on outstanding felony warrants -- and is now the prime suspect.

"I asked him did he know anything about the disappearance of Douglas Calhoun, and his answer was like 'No. I don't know what you're talking about,'" said Det. McDonald.

When DNA tests confirmed blood found in his house belonged to Chef Doug, cops knew who could help them find the body.

"You already told me he died in that house. Where is his body?" said Det. McDonald.

In exchange for immunity, Baskerville's girlfriend agreed to tell them everything.

"We decided just to put her in a car and we kind of just said 'Take us to where Douglas Calhoun is at,'" said Det. McDonald. "She identified the garage and said 'Hey, he's gonna be in a trash can in the back of the garage.' Right where she said it was at, it was there."

In his many years investigating homicides, Det. McDonald says he'd never seen something so callous.

"It was just mind-boggling how someone, a human can take another human, put him in a trash can, roll him to a vacant garage and just leave him there," said McDonald.

"I can't imagine why anyone would do this horrendous thing to my cousin," said Camilla Henderson.

And when Chef Doug's family found out why, they were in utter disbelief.

"He [Doug] wanted to do it without a condom," Travun Baskerville's girlfriend testifies.

Travun's girlfriend claims the chef agreed to pay her $50 for oral sex -- but then wanted more.

"And what did you do at that point?"

"I told him no," the girlfriend said in court.

She says he then asked for his money back, and that's when Travun Baskerville came out with a gun.

"Them two started going back and forth," said the girlfriend.

"What does 'back and forth' mean?"

"They was arguing back and forth about the money," the girlfriend said.

"Where does Trey put the body?"

"It's in a Dumpster," said the girlfriend.

"Did you help him do that?"

"Yes," said the girlfriend.

"Why?"

"'Cause I was scared," said the girlfriend.

At nightfall the trash container was moved to the garage of a nearby vacant home.

"They threw him away like he was trash," said Doug's sister Dayna Phillips.

Chef Doug was finally found 37 days later.

"We were right there in Brightmoor community, we must have walked past him at least five or six times," said Camilla.

On the day of his arraignment, the accused killer Travun Baskerville sat stone-faced as the first-degree murder charge was read.

"The expression was like 'I don't care about the murder charge,'" said Det. McDonald.

But when the judge said he was also being charged with human-trafficking:

"His head popped up and his eyes got real wide," said Det. McDonald. "'Human trafficking? Where do you get that charge from?'"

They got that from his 17-year-old girlfriend, who claims Travun Baskerville forced her into prostitution at age 16, then confiscated all the money she earned. She claims he refused to let her get a regular job.

"He kept saying 'Why you want to work? You don't want to work for the white man,'" the girlfriend testified.

"She's not a victim as far as I'm concerned, she's selling herself," said Dayna Phillips.

Chef Doug's sister believes the teen had other choices in life.

"Just like she went home after all this happened, she could have gone home before this happened," said Dayna. "Not only that, it happened and you allowed it to go on and on for 37 days. I know sex-trafficking is real and I know I'm angry, so I don't know that I'm projecting that anger and not giving her the benefit of the doubt."

As for Travun Baskerville:

"Just a piece of trash who manipulates and degrades women," said Dayna.

If convicted of the murder of Douglas Calhoun, Travun Baskerville will spend the rest of his life behind bars.

For Dayna, the punishment would not fit the crime.

"I wish we had the death penalty," said Dayna Phillips. "I do. Because I don't want to work every day to pay for him to eat."

Travun Baskerville faces seven felony counts in all -- including the first-degree murder charge. He has pleaded not guilty. If convicted he faces life in prison.

UPDATE August 7, 2018: