pictures: Keisha Murray, Amber Bass, Tiphne Hollis - The group MAD DADS hopes 2015 will be the year the code of silence is broken, and dozens of unsolved murders in Jacksonville will be solved. According to News4Jax records, there were 95 murders in 2014 and 57 of the murders being investigated by the Jacksonville Sheriffs Office remain unsolved. Thats why the group joined family members of those murder victims and knocked on doors in one Northwest Jacksonville neighborhood. It hurts. Thats how Tequila Murray describes the year and a half since her sister, Keisha Murray, was found dead under a tree at Restlawn Cemetery. What makes it worse, Tequila Murray says, is that police still havent found the person who killed the mother of five. Its hard to sleep at night sometimes and its like one of the worst things ever that you can ever imagine happening to a family, said Tequila Murray. She found comfort standing with people who share her pain, like the family of Amber Bass. Someone shot the 22-year-old as she sat in her Westside Driveway in 2013. Her family often thinks of what it would feel like for her murder to be solved. Were not sure that its going to make us feel that much better but itll be a different feeling. And well just feel like just a little something for her. Were just going to keep fighting, said Susan Singer. They continued that fight Saturday, joining the group MAD DADS in the Northwest Jacksonville area of Grand Park. They knocked on doors, handed out fliers with the names of 11 unsolved murders that happened in that neighborhood last year, the most of any neighborhood in Jacksonville. The event started and ended at 13th and Canal streets where a 16-year-old was shot and killed while waiting for the bus. But Mad Dads says its not just about this unsolved murder. MAD DADs President Donald Foy says every unsolved murder is critical. He hopes that by knocking doors the community will be ignited and break the code of silence, to help solve them. We cant blame JSO because they are not there when the crime happens. When the murder occurs. But the community has got to break the code of silence and tell what they know. For them to be able to solve it, said Foy. Shanda Whitaker-Ward has been waiting nearly five years for the person who shot and killed her 16-year-old daughter, Tiphne Hollis to be brought to justice. She admits its been hard, but says events like these make it easier. While were out here seeking justice were doing something positive in the community. Were out here giving back in the memories of Tiphne,said Whitaker-Ward. news4jax/news/mad-dads-walk-for-unsolved-murders/30514640
Posted on: Sun, 04 Jan 2015 15:46:29 +0000
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