The scene where police discovered Genaro Gray’s body on Sept. 16, 2020, was among the most disturbing some officers had ever seen. Gray, 31, had been shot to death alongside his cousin, 30-year-old Javona Coleman, and her boyfriend, 27-year-old Darius Parker, inside an Irving Street apartment building.
Children found their bodies before police did.
And Gray’s father, Emery Gray, still doesn’t know who killed them. No arrests have ever been made in the case; no charges have been filed.
“Whoever did it, my son knew them,” Emery Gray said Wednesday. “They came in, he must have turned his back, and that’s when they shot him first and then went upstairs and shot my niece and her boyfriend.”
Gray said he talks to the detective assigned to the case almost every day. No luck. He worries that people with information about the crime have let fear keep them from contacting investigators.
“Don’t be scared,” he said. “Speak up, speak up. If it was your family, you’d want someone to speak up, so speak up for mine.”
Spending the 2020 holiday season mourning his son was difficult, Gray added. He’s bracing for a similarly bleak Feb. 14, when Genaro Gray would have celebrated his 32nd birthday.
None of it is fair, Emery Gray said. He wants his son’s killer to know that he won’t give up trying to find them.
“You murdered three people and you're sleeping at night?” he said. “You ain't got no conscience, so I hope God shines a light on you and brings you to justice real quick, in Jesus’ name.”
