Interview with Ms. Donna Hogan - Page one of three

Date of interview: December 10, 2009

Place of interview: Houston, Texas

Description: Home of Ms. Donna Hogan

Equipment: Sony mini-HD DV camcorder & Sennheiser external microphone

Recorded on: Sony mini-DV cassette tapes

Interviewer: Kimberly Ambrosini-Bacon

Videographer: Lydia Crafts

Transcription: Lydia Crafts

Reviewed & Edited: Lydia Crafts, Maurice Chammah

Date of this version: October 29th, 2010

DONNA HOGAN: So Boston, you get snow.

CRAFTS: Yeah, we get a lot of snow.

DONNA HOGAN: So this is nothing for you.

CRAFTS: No, although I've been here a couple years now, so- I'm cold. I'm not used to it.

DONNA HOGAN: I'm - mmkay.

AMBROSINI-BACON: So here you'll just print your name and then date of birth and location and your signature, and also if I could get you, either on the form or on the back to write your address down, that way we can have your stuff to send.

DONNA HOGAN: Date of birth. Thirteenth.

AMBROSINI-BACON: And that's just to distinguish you from all the other Ms. Hogans out there in the world.

DONNA HOGAN: Yeah.

AMBROSINI-BACON: Make sure we've got the right one.

DONNA HOGAN: I think there's about three in Texas .

AMBROSINI-BACON: Oh, really?

DONNA HOGAN: You want to put my address here?

AMBROSINI-BACON: If you could -

DONNA HOGAN: Location of interview?

AMBROSINI-BACON: Yeah, if you could put your address that would be great. Thank you.

DONNA HOGAN: You want the zip code and everything?

AMBROSINI-BACON: Yeah, please.

DONNA HOGAN: Okay.

DONNA HOGAN: Okay. There you go, ma'am.

AMBROSINI-BACON: Thank you very much.

DONNA HOGAN: Did I need to put something at the top? At the top up there? Right where your hand is?

AMBROSINI-BACON: Oh, yeah, well I guess I'll fill in Lydia's name, cause she's the one who helped me with the - with the project.

DONNA HOGAN: Okay.

AMBROSINI-BACON: Okay. So we kind of went through the consent process. You do orally consent to the interview.

DONNA HOGAN: Oh.

AMBROSINI-BACON: You just say, like, yeah, you consent to the interview.

DONNA HOGAN: Oh, okay, yes, I consent to be interviewed today, 12-10-09.

AMBROSINI-BACON: Okay, and you understand how your interview will be used and kind of the whole process that we talked about.

DONNA HOGAN: Yes, I understand fully.

AMBROSINI-BACON: So I guess to start, we're here at Ms. Hogan's house in Houston, Texas. Myself Kimberly Bacon is doing the interview and Lydia Crafts is doing the camera work.

DONNA HOGAN: Yes.

AMBROSINI-BACON: So I guess to get started, if you wouldn't mind telling us a little bit about your background, where you grew up, and that kind of thing?

DONNA HOGAN: Okay. I'm a native Houstonian. I was born and raised right here in Houston. I'm 56 years old. I'm the mother of three sons and one daughter. I have eight grandchildren, and I am a - for a living, what I do for a living, I actually work with preschool children, ages three to five in the Head Start program here in Houston. That's it.

AMBROSINI-BACON: Okay. Could you tell me a little bit about your family and your children?

DONNA HOGAN: Okay, I have one grown - okay, all of my children are grown. I have one grown daughter Lolita Joiner, she's forty-one; one grown son, Keith Woodard, he's forty; and I have my younger son, is Levar Woodard, he's thirty-two, engaged to be married real soon in July. And my youngest son was LeDuke, he would've been about thirty years old right now. It's been five years since his murder. It's been five years.

I have an adult granddaughter that's twenty-three years old, just recently moved into her new apartment. She's excited about it. I am, too.

And I have seven other grandchildren. I have - try to remember - three girls and five boys. They range from ages of twenty-five until about ten years old. Well, no, I got two young grandsons that's three and four - three and four years old. So Tory is four and Christian is three. And then I got Alexis is fifteen, and I just - all the way down the row. All the way down. I have Alexis is fifteen, then I have a -

And my son LeDuke, he left three sons LeQarius, LeParius , and Tredric. He left three sons. They now teenagers. Well, two of 'em are teenagers, one is about ten years old now, the youngest one is about - he was about four then, so he's about nine years old now. And I don't get to see 'em as much as I'd like to, but one of 'em I do see regularly. Most of 'em - whenever we can get together. usually on holidays and some weekends. And that's pretty much my family.

My daughter works - she is a procurement specialist here in Houston. She orders the fire trucks and police cars for the city of Houston and surrounding areas. My oldest son Keith and LeVar, they both are managers for Sam's Club. And so we all are pretty busy people.

We do a lot of community work when we're not working. We got a chance to feed the homeless for Thanksgiving, hopefully again for Christmas, and it's so rewarding. We all - church. We attend the Baptist church here in Houston. My youngest son is one of the associate ministers at our church. And that's pretty much all I can think of right now. Maybe later I'll think of something else I can tell you about.

AMBROSINI-BACON: Okay.

DONNA HOGAN: I've been working for 15 years with young children. Very rewarding work. I just got a promotion to the site manager. So I'm excited about it! I have about twenty staff under my leadership. Actually I work right around the corner. I wish I could get a chance to show you, but anyway - very rewarding work. And so I've been living here at this address - we've been here for - I've been living at this same address for twenty-five years. My son was raised - my kids was raised here - and so now at this point in my life, I'm enjoying life, just being me. Everybody's grown and gone now, so I'm just enjoying life being me. So that's it.

AMBROSINI-BACON: Okay. Sorry. Excuse me. I know you wanted to show us some photographs. So do you want to start by doing that? Okay.

DONNA HOGAN: Yes, I'm gonna - I'm gonna show you

CRAFTS: Bring the camera? Or -

AMBROSINI-BACON: Yeah.

CRAFTS: Or bring the photos in here? Okay.

DONNA HOGAN: You can - I can bring photos in here. I can show you the main photo - whichever. Which one you want me to do?

CRAFTS: Maybe it'd be better to bring it in. It never, like, looks that good in there.

DONNA HOGAN: Yeah, okay, let me bring it to you. I'll bring it to you.

CRAFTS: Sounds good. I'm picking up some --

AMBROSINI-BACON: Maybe the air?

CRAFTS: Yeah. Oh, well. Does this look crooked to you? I, like, I get - I can never, like, tell, exactly.

AMBROSINI-BACON: I think a little bit. Usually - Cause, like the legs just aren't -

CRAFTS: The legs - I pulled them all out. So I thought -

AMBROSINI-BACON: Yeah, even when they're all out all the way, one of them's just a little bit off.

CRAFTS: A little bigger?

AMBROSINI-BACON: Yea I think maybe lower that back one a little bit?

CRAFTS: Okay. This one -

AMBROSINI-BACON: And look at that bubble. Is it this one?

DONNA HOGAN: I'll try to take some of this stuff out of here.

CRAFTS: Is that better? That looks better to me.

AMBROSINI-BACON: Is that better? Let's just look at the -

CRAFTS: That looks - it could be a little more [inaudible].

AMBROSINI-BACON: Like that?

CRAFTS: Yeah. That looks pretty good. Yeah. It's good.

AMBROSINI-BACON: Okay, cool.

DONNA HOGAN: Not a lot of photos, so y'all don't have to worry I'm gonna share a lot.

AMBROSINI-BACON: Oh, no, it's good, and it's a good way to kind of recall certain memories and that kind of thing.

DONNA HOGAN: Yeah. Yeah. This is his picture. My - I'm gonna tell you a little bit about my son, so you can kinda get a idea. He was only 25 years old, so he was just beginning his career, with doing - promoting local talent in the rap music area or whatever you want to say. He was - he liked music. I'll just put it like that. And so he was into music and socializing. He had been -

CRAFTS: Actually, sorry, I can't put this up. Would you mind - is it okay to sit?

DONNA HOGAN: Sit? Yeah, I better sit. Yeah, let me sit. Okay, yeah, that's better. Is it rolling - it's not rolling yet, huh?

CRAFTS: Okay. Sorry about that.

DONNA HOGAN: That's okay. I really do - I - It's probably better. LeDuke was a - he wanted to always work for himself. He wanted to be his own entrepreneur. He just decided he didn't want to do 9 to 5. He wanted to - started off working with the legal field, working with prepaid legal, and he - at that point, he was able to meet up with a lot of the mentors that mentored - or wanted to mentor him in being an entrepreneur, you know, doing things that he really liked.

So he started off with doing prepaid legal and then later wanted to do local talent, wanted to be a producer - music producer - and research and do things with local talent here in Houston. And he wanted to be able to get with different people that was interested in the music business and then try to promote music outside of Houston, like take Houston talent to Louisiana, Atlanta - you know how you get people on that's just starting in the music business - that's the type of work he wanted to do.

And so that's what he started off - he had a recording studio at first, just a little small area in the Bellaire area. He had a little - I want to say it was a little studio. And they could go and record music - gospel, rap, all different types of music. And then later, he decided to move out of that area and go to an area - when he was in Bellaire, in the evening time it was kinda quiet and he didn't get much business, so he decided to move to another area of Houston that was in the Southwest Houston - where more people, more the younger crowd. And he moved into this strip center where they had a little reggae club or whatever little club where young people hung out and when they would leave the club in the night, they would - they had other businesses that was open in the evening, where they would all gang and talk, and he -

That's where he got the idea to open up a record shop where people, when they would leave - when they would leave out of the club or whatever, they could come over to his record shop and listen to music. So he had just acquired this location about six months before. Actually he hadn't even had the grand opening. He was just getting ready for the grand opening when this incident happened.

So what happened as far as I know, that particular evening he was here visiting. He had had trouble working with his car, he had some trouble - he had been having some trouble with his radiator and he had - was staying over here that particular weekend. And it happened on a Monday. And when I came home from work he was here, he was relaxing here at the house and he went to pick up his car from the auto repair shop that's right around the corner. And so we all had a good evening - my husband and I - we were laughing and talking and he got up and the Astros - the Houston Astros was in the playoffs during that year. So he was gonna go home and watch one of the playoffs games, and got up and went and picked up his car from the repair shop. And he laughed and talked with us and that was the last time I really saw him that afternoon, probably about 5:30 to 6 o'clock.

And he was gonna go over and be with my nephews, his cousins, they were gonna hang out and watch the Astros game. And so they say he was there till about 8:30 or 9 o'clock, and he had an appointment with some local musicians to do a recording about 11 o'clock that night. They usually record at night. And so he had a recording session that was gonna take place about 11 o'clock that night.

And my nephews say he left and he went to get something to eat and he was gonna meet his musicians around 11 o'clock. So that's the last we heard.

Then about 11:30 that night, me and my husband had just laid down for the evening and my husband was still awake but we were both in the bedroom. I had just laid down, and we got a knock on the door, right here on the front door, and it wasn't a normal knock, it was like a pounding knock. Like somebody just knocking hard or ringing the doorbell real fast, so - about me, I was just in a twilight sleep, I really didn't hear, but I heard the banging on my front door. And then after we didn't move fast, the person, it was one of my son's friends, had heard that my son had been shot.

Somebody phoned - the area, the Southwest area, had called him and told him that my son had been shot. So he came to our bedroom window and knocked on the bedroom window real hard, and called out my husband's name, and called out my name, and telling us that my son had been shot. So I jumped up. I thought it was - you know that's one of them calls you never ever wanna hear.

But anyways, I - I jumped up and got dressed and - to go to the front door. Me and my husband went to the front door and he - the guy said - well, he didn't have very much information. All he knew was that a call had came that my son had been shot in his business establishment. So just as I was - first thing I did, I just fell to my knees, and I just - it was just some type of feeling that was just saying that my son was gone. I don't know what it was, it was just like - it was just like a calm between - in a storm, but it was like a calm.

And so just as I was turning around - I was right in this area right here in the living room - the telephone started to ring. And it was Ben Taub Hospital telling me - telling me that - asking me and my husband could - how soon could be come to the hospital? So I was saying to the lady - I'll never forget that lady's name, her name was Portia, and she said - and I said, "I know he's been shot." I said, "I already know he's been shot. What is his condition?"

And she said, " Well, ma'am, we can't talk about that. You have to come to the hospital."

So my husband and I, we hurriedly started getting dressed to go to the hospital. And by that time, family members had started hearing about the incident. You know, it just spread like wildfire. My son was well-known, well-liked in the community, and he was just like the everyday hero, everybody knew him. So he was - so the word started getting out, and my daughter heard about it by then.

At that time, my daughter was probably four or five months pregnant with her son. And she was kinda in a fragile state at that time, because, you know, she hadn't had a baby for awhile, and then she was - she was just very very upset. We're a very close family, and her being the only girl, she was very protective of her brothers, and especially him, cause he was the type of person who'd give you the shirt off of his back. Whatever they needed, if he had it, you could get it. So she was upset, and everybody was calling.

We didn't have any information. I didn't know if my son was badly injured; I didn't know if he was dead; I didn't know what the situation was. So my husband and I, we hurriedly got ready and started heading to the hospital, Ben Taub. And I just insisted to my husband that I drive. And my husband didn't want me - but he said - I said please - I said, " Just let me drive." I said, " That will calm me, if you just let me drive."

My husband thought it wasn't a good time but, you know, I drove. I had the last word. I drove to the hospital as fast as I could. But there was nobody on the road. It was - looked like there was like about - it was going up to about 12 o'clock then - and looked like - it wasn't - didn't even look like a dog went across the road. It was just - looked like it was clear sailing for me all the way to the hospital. And so we got there.

When I got to the hospital, my nephews, my son's cousins, other neighborhood friends - they were already there. They met us at the hospital. They were already sitting in the waiting room at Ben Taub. And --.

Because I had experienced it before with one of my neighbors, usually when they come out and they take you to a family room or something, it usually means the person has already expired or they have – real, real serious. So when they met the doctors and the nurses and they met us as we arrived to Ben Taub Emergency Room, and when they took me in that little room, I already knew he was gone. I mean, within my spirit. I already knew my son was gone.

Even when the lady called me, and my husband said, " Why are you saying that?"

I said, " I just know." I said, "It's just something - the spirit is just telling me that he's gone. He's not just hurt. He's gone."

So when the doctors and nurses - they were there standing, waiting for us when we got there. As soon as they got us in the room - the immediate family - I got them - our daughter, my oldest son was there - my younger son, that's another story. I wasn't able to get in contact with him. I thought maybe both of them had been injured, cause they were real, real close. They were - when you saw one, you saw the other.

But anyway - they told us that LeDuke - that they had worked on him. And they really did work on him, but they wasn't able to save him. And the autopsy reports showed that he had a single gunshot wound to his abdomen - single gunshot, but it was the type of bullet that it was, it was one of those hollow-point bullets, and it just went in. It damaged his internal organs, and that's what really killed him - wasn't very much blood, it was just a very, very tiny entry to his abdomen. Here, right here on the left side. But because it was one of those hollow-point bullets, it damaged all his internal organs and that's what really killed him. He didn't have any drugs or alcohol in his system, none of that.

And I was just glad to know that, because usually when young people are gathering, when things happen - and I don't care what community it is, whether it's Black, Hispanic, or whatever - they always assume it's drugs, or drug-related, or it's altercation-related. With young people they always assume the worst, so for me that was calming for me to know that he wasn't on any drugs or alcohol - nothing like that. So that was good for me.

But to this point they haven't found out who murdered him.

They showed my husband and I - we stayed at Ben Taub Hospital from 12 o'clock until 5 o'clock a.m. before they would let us go in and really identify - I wanted to see for myself - and the nurses and doctors asked us - asked me would I like to donate his organs and his tissue or his skin or - since he was a young person they could use it for research - and things like that.

And I gave my consent, but because it was a homicide case, you know, when the homicide - when they have to do autopsies and things like that, they have to disturb the body and getting evidence and stuff like that - it took too long for them to be able to get the tissue and everything, so - but I had assumed that they had did the tissue work and got what they needed.

I really wanted his eyes donated. He had good 20/20 vision. I knew his heart probably wouldn't be able to be saved, but maybe his skin or something like that could be donated to help somebody else. I just wanted a part of him to continue to live. So I didn't even know that they didn't get it until after the funeral, and then I got a letter that because of the autopsy and them taking so long, that they were not able to get his tissue to be able to be used for research.

But anyway, we went and five hours later they let us go in and view his body. And I just wanted to see that it was him. I just wanted to see for myself. So my ex-husband, which was LeDuke's father, was there; his stepfather, which was my husband; my daughter and her husband and my son - they said only two of us could go in. But I begged the lady, please let us all have the opportunity to - for one, that we wouldn't touch the body, we would just - just view it and come out. And they did, they - she - with very much dignity, they allowed us to go in and view his body just for a few minutes, and we all came out.

So, that was a - it's a moment I'll never forget. That was the toughest day of my life. It was tough. But - it was hard. But we was - we was together as a family, and we all grieved in our own different ways, but we made it. We made it through.

But in a way - here's some pictures I want to share, of us in good times. He was a dresser- he used to like to dress up. He was into hip-hop then - probably now that he would be old, he would probably be out of the hip-hop stuff, but - these are some old family vacations - I mean, at the park, Mother's Day, you might not - can't even see him. This is baby pictures when he was like nine months old.

CRAFTS: Yeah, I wonder - how can we do this so we can see -

DONNA HOGAN: You might not, can't see em, but

AMBROSINI-BACON: We could have you turn it, or we could bring the camera

CRAFTS: Yeah, maybe I could bring the camera closer, and you can, like, hold it up?

DONNA HOGAN: Yeah, maybe I'll just show one picture anyway.

CRAFTS: Yeah. Okay. (camera readjusted)

DONNA HOGAN: This is him - yeah, you might just have to take it. This was him when he was about nine months old. You can't really see it that good. This is some of our family time. This is his first son when he was born. I mean, this is the youngest baby when he was born. Some of the moments we had here, and there's some more pictures of when he was like three months old.

AMBROSINI-BACON: So cute.

DONNA HOGAN: And this was him later, and this is when he was in elementary. This is some more family pictures. We were always together for holidays and birthdays. I think that was his birthday. We were - and this was him and I when he brought me my first leather coat on the Christmas before he passed away. He brought my - he brought me a leather coat - red- and he brought my husband a leather coat.

And this was his birthday. He loved birthdays. He loved birthdays. This was him when he was in elementary, some of his teachers. Just family moments, you know, that we had.

That's him and his children. His son. This was when his old car - they liked the cars, him and his brother, they used to fix up old cars - and this really wasn't an old car, this was really a nice car right here - but they would go out to Galveston on the beach and hang out. That's him at the beach in Galveston, just chilling a little bit. And that's just about it.

And this is just - these are just some pictures he had taken before his death that we all didn't even know he had a series of pictures - but some professional pictures he had had done of himself just hanging around and hanging out.

And then this is his obituary, maybe you want to see it. His obituary, some family pictures in there. And that's pretty much it. That's not a lot. Most are the same pictures. Yeah. Let me show you some of the people.

This here is - you might not see it well, but this is my husband and myself, and this is him and his brother when they were in elementary school, and my daughter. This is just family times - Halloween, dress-up time, when they would go riding around town.

And then these are some celebrities - this is my son's three boys right here, this is his three children. At the time, Tredric was eight, LeParius was five, and LeQarius was seven. This at the time - now they're big teenagers now.

My son, he had a lot of local talent friends. I don't know if you know some of these people. I don't know their names - this is Keith Sweat, and this is the man that did movies. I can't think of his name - John - John - I forgot his name.

But anyways, these are some of his - these are family pictures and some of his local talent friends that he did music producing with. And this is the guy that was one of his mentors when he was in the prepaid legal business. They're just people - when he travelled all around, he went to Dallas, San Antonio, Louisiana, Atlanta. They just went around promoting music all different places. And that's pretty much it that I have on him.

[camera readjusted]

DONNA HOGAN: I'll wait until you get it set.

AMBROSINI-BACON: Thank you for showing us those.

DONNA HOGAN: Yes, that's kind of nice, kind of like gives you a little interest in who the person is. He liked the best. He was the type of person - he didn't like it shabby. He had nice clothes, nice furniture - he made money, when he was - when you're in that type of business you might make a lot of money one time and the next time you might not have too much money. It was kind of hard.

But whatever he had he shared with us as a family. He would just sometimes come by and tell my husband, " Y'all look like y'all are hungry today. Why don't y'all go up to Papa's and get you something to eat?" He'd just make jokes with us like that. And on Valentine’s Day, every year he would have me a big bouquet of red roses. Every year for Valentine’s Day. Every year. I miss that about him. He was a giving - giving - person.

I mean, he would help me every Friday. He would help. If there was a guy that I met that said one day he didn't have nothing, LeDuke paid his rent for him. He even bought - one time, it was already the car he had but he gave it to his friend. His friend didn't have a car, and he had a nice car, so he gave it to his friend. And so he was a giving person. I liked that about him.

So whoever murdered him - we don't know why, we don't know if it was about money, we don't know if it was about maybe having a contract, could've been about - because he was a singer guy, could've been over a woman - you know whenever they're young like that, you never really know what could be a beef with the person. Could've been because people thought he had more than what he had, which he had very little - I think when the coroner gave me his contents, he had about 36 dollars. That's all the money he had on him.

But they investigated his murder, and it's still open. It's five years now. We just had a candlelight vigil on October the eighteenth this year. As a matter of fact, I even made television. Channel 11 did an interview of me and my family, the whole entire family, and other support groups. I'm in a support group with Parents with Murdered Children - you know, you saw them, that's the way I met you - and also another group called the [Unsolved Violent Crime Alert].

And they both basically the same organization except that the Unsolved Violent Crime Alert is based here in our immediate neighborhood. As you know, the Parents of Murdered Children is in the Heights area. Well, we have a lot of deaths and a lot of young people in this immediate area that had suffered a lot of unsolved crimes too.

So this lady, Ms. Jennifer Johnson, she took it another level and kind of brought it over in our community a little bit more, because a lot of our families couldn't always go out to the Heights area and participate with them. But we still always join in together when we have events like the - when they had a National Day of Remembrance, when we have other things that's going on with crime victims, we still come together. So that's why I meet up with both organizations. Cause we all have a common cause. It's not about Black, white, Hispanic. It's all for the common cause. It's that we keep it out there that people know that our children meant something to us, and that their crimes are still unsolved.

And it's not just our children, it's just anybody, any loved one, any human being that's been murdered. And it helps to be in those support groups because it helps you to not just focus on you all the time. It helps you to focus on other people that's going through the same thing that you going through. It's more comforting to know - to be among other people that's going through the same thing that you going through. So that's why I love that organization.

Sometimes we have events, like for Mother's Day and Christmas and all - cause you know, you can imagine holidays and things is the hardest time for us because that person is just not there. But you just learn to just go forward and go on with it. But you realize that that person is not there, and you never forget. You never forget. Never, ever. You might put it in the back side of your mind for awhile, but this is always there.

On my Christmas tree I have an ornament in his memory. Every year for Christmas we always put that ornament up in his memory, to let him know that he's still a part of this family. I don't care what - it's still just off a little way. Also in the back - it's not all that - I don't have all that manicured right now - but I have a little garden right in my backyard in remembrance of him and my husband. Just to me it's like life growing in the backyard. I have some of the plants from there - funeral services, and things that I kept, and you'd be surprised, they don't never die. They just continue to grow, even without a little bit of care.

You know, they still continue to grow, so that's what I do in remembrance of them - and try to be a part of their family, I mean his family, his boys, even though their mothers have since moved on - married, or got other significant others, they've had other children and things like that. So we don't see each other as much as I would love to see them. I wish I could see them more, cause that's the only little connection that I have to my son is his kids. But I understand that their mothers, you know, they moved on in other relationships and things, so sometimes it just can't be all the time.

And they have very few rights for grandparents. They tell me there's some rights that we have, maybe for visitation, but you know you have to get lawyers involved and all of that, and I don't want to make more hardship on their mothers than necessary. And because my son was so young and didn't really have an active, like, would you say a per se job, or hadn't really been established long, his children wasn't able to receive any kind of compensation or social security or anything like that. So the only thing I can do as a grandmother is try to offer my assistance when I can, and when I can and give it in whatever forms that we as a family have. We still try to do for them - for them, when we can.

So that's pretty much my story. That's pretty much all I can really say on that.

Oh - I want to say on the investigation, though, I feel like the detectives tried when they first - when they first got the case, I think they - they - they - they interviewed some people, they followed some leads, but with so many murders and things in the - in this metropolitan area, there's no way for them to keep one-on-one with every case. There's so many cases. And unless they get a lead, unless they get something to redirect them or whatever, it's probably just, virtually, unless someone just confesses, somebody says they saw something, or somebody comes forward, it's probably very much the detectives can do.

We do keep in touch. I do keep in touch with one of the lead investigators, Darcus Shorten. The other investigator that was on the case, it was a older gentleman, he retired, maybe about six months after LeDuke's death. So he was no longer - so he left me with Shorten by herself.

And then for a period of time, she left the police department. She adopted a baby and she left the police - she didn't leave the police department, but she left the homicide division. So my son's case got what? Just pushed to the barrel, you know, bottom of the barrel. I'm not gonna say it wasn't looked at, but it was just turned over to some more detectives that wasn't very familiar with the case.

So last year I was happy to know that Darcus Shorten- she returned as the lead detective - the one that went out to the scene, the one that interviewed me, the one where I went down to the police department - you know, we kind of got personal. She still has got the case open and she still listens out for leads.

But it's up to us as the family to keep it out there - keep the fliers going. That's why we had the candlelight vigil, in October - in the same area it happened we put out fliers - we put out about 200 fliers that the Crimestoppers printed up for me. They've been very nice and supportive through the Parents of Murdered Children and those different detectives and community support and Andy Kahan, those people do help you. They give you as much support as they can for murder victims, so they do tell us to update, they do put you on Crimestoppers if you so desire to be on Crimestoppers and they still - you still as a family have to keep it out there. They'll investigate it, but it is up to you to keep - keep the fliers going, keep letting the public know that it's unsolved and whatever.

So that's just pretty much that on the investigation. And we don't have any leads on nothing. I haven't heard anything, we haven't - early on in the investigation, we had a theory, but unless you have really evidence, they - even if you think it might be something, might think it is - unless they have enough evidence, they can't do anything with the case. So that's the way it stands, now it's been five years. And the case is still open. So if you have any other questions for me, I'm open.

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