Fort Payne Cold Case Solved

Fort Payne police have solved a 1986 murder case, but say the resolution is bittersweet for everyone involved.

On April 19, 1986 the Fort Payne Police Department received a call that a man had been shot at his residence on Scenic Drive. The suspect in the shooting was reported to have run south away from the residence.

Fort Payne Police found Mark Allen Phillips, 25, had been shot and killed.

Several officers have worked on the case over the years. The case was never closed, nor forgotten, even as some of the officers retired and some are now deceased.

Fort Payne Police Detective Lt. Andy Hairston was a patrolman in 1986 when the murder occurred and has worked on the case over the years and been instrumental in solving the case.

Facts recently came to light that enabled Detective Hairston to work with the help of Dekalb District Attorney Mike Odell to obtain closure to the murder case that happened 23 years ago.

Certain facts of the case were not released to the public in 1986 and those facts have helped to verify that the person that we have concluded committed the murder is in fact the correct person.

The person who committed the murder has been identified as Larry Lavon Dyar who lived in Dekalb County at the time of the murder.

Dyar died in 2008 of cancer in Tennessee.

Police say the motive for the murder was due to Phillips alleged involvement in the rape of a 16 year old girl that would later become the wife of Larry Dyar. The rape occurred in 1979 near the Billy's Ford area in Dekalb County.

A release from the Fort Payne Police Dept., said, "The closure of this murder case is bittersweet to both the family of the victim and to law enforcement. It will not bring a man back, nor was the killer prosecuted by a court of law before his own death.

"The Fort Payne Police department and the Dekalb County District Attorney's Office wish to express their sympathy to the families of the victim and the defendants as violent crimes of this nature touch people far reaching for many years."