James Martin, a 63-year-old Black man known as James ’Poke’ Martin, was the victim of a brutal homicide in Philadelphia. Court records describe a confrontation after Martin allegedly made remarks to Kimerly Joynes; Joynes and her male companion, Robert Snead, confronted him and Snead beat Martin until he was unconscious. Joynes then stabbed Martin several times with a carving fork near the time of death, though medical testimony said those stab wounds were not the cause of death.

After the attack, Joynes helped Snead wrap Martin’s body into a bundle, attempted to clean blood and other evidence from the room, and the body was later dumped in a marshy area where police found it. Joynes was convicted by a jury of first-degree murder and criminal conspiracy on July 24, 1980, and sentenced to life imprisonment; the conviction was upheld on appeal and further review was denied in 1983. Joynes’ later post-conviction petitions, including one filed in 2016, were rejected, and a 2018 decision affirmed denial of a serial PCRA petition, leaving the conviction and life sentence intact.

Did anyone in Philadelphia at the time have information about where Martin was last seen alive or about Snead’s role?