CINCINNATI - “It just gets so lonely sometime where I just feel like you know the emptiness in my heart,” Sandra Dukes tells her son at his grave.
It is the fourth anniversary of Jason Dukes’ murder in the West End. His mother and family have gathered again to remember him and hope for justice.
His killer is still free.
“I don't care how many people surround me,” said Sandra Dukes, surrounded by family at Vine Street Hill Cemetery, “sometimes I still feel lonely because I just miss his presence.
Dukes has been visiting her son’s grave since right after he was killed on May 10, 2014.
“I just thank the Lord for the 33 years that he lent my son to me because he's the best son any mother would ever want to have," she said.
As the years pass, though, Dukes and her family continue to wonder who killed Jason.
”Everything in the darkness should come to light," she said.
Jason Dukes died after he was shot at the Kumasi Motorcycle Club, a nightclub in the West End, just off Central Parkway. His mother said someone knows something about his death.
“I can't even really even explain how my heart … you know, how heavy my heart is … The fact it hasn't been solved yet … we have no type of closure,” she said.
And that’s so frustrating for the whole family.
”Nobody's come forward,” said Jason’s cousin, Lakisha Dukes. “Everybody knows us. We're very known. And we know that somebody knows something, but of course. nobody came forward. Nobody said anything."
Dukes now watches over her son's four children as she prays for justice.
“I just pray that this person will realize what he did and that he would be revealed and come in and surrender," she said.
