FORT MYERS, Fla. — A mother is holding onto hope of finding her son's killer.
Desmond Jones was only 13 years old when he was shot and killed back in 2011.
This week marks 12 years since the night Desmond Jones was shot in the head while visiting a friend.
This will also mark the last year Fort Myers Police's (FMPD) Cold Case unit can pick up the case.
Despite all of the years that have gone by, one of the investigators on the case told Fox 4's Briana Brownlee the unit is extremely optimistic.
“11 years ago, angry… I was angry…," said Denae Hendley, Desmond's mother.
Anger is the only emotion Hendley remembers feeling right after seeing her youngest child and only son lying lifeless on the pavement with a sheet over him after being fatally shot.
“He was only 13, he was only a child," said Annie Mae, Desmond's grandmother.
“He was a 13-year-old boy, not doing anything wrong, doing what 13-year-olds do," said Michael Iarossi, a lead investigator with FMPD. "Very beginning, just hanging in his neighborhood, and he was met with gunfire.”
Desmond was barely in his teen years when he was shot in the head in front of what's now a vacant lot that used to be home.
That night when the family arrived on the scene they held out hope the body wasn't Desmond.
Desmond's grandmother said she remembered saying, “It might not be him, I said Denae it might not be him."
However, the harsh reality settled in.
”When the coroner came and took the sheet off and I saw those shoes…I broke down, I broke down on my knees," Hendley said.
Her "Nerdy baby", who loved to joke is how Hendley remembered her son.
Now more than a decade later she and her family still have unanswered questions.
“What was your reason? Why?" Hendley asked.
After attending prayer groups and counseling for years, Hendley found the strength to fight back. She reached out to Southwest Florida's Crime Stoppers which led to FMPD's cold case unit taking over the case.
Earlier last year, Crime Stoppers put up a billboard on Martin Luther King Junior Boulevard and Ford Street asking for tips in Desmond's case.
Hendley said it showed that her baby's case wasn't forgotten.
“Peace…I feel at peace because somebody cares, and we got cold case working," Hendley said.
“We feel as though this case has a great deal of potential of being solved," Iarossi said.
Iarossi, is one of the lead investigators from the cold case unit seeking answers to the young teen's death.
“These cases leave survivors," Iarossi said. “Primarily what we are trying to do in the cold case unit is simply give these people hope.”
Hendley and her mother filled with hope and no longer with grief and anger, stood in the very spot she saw her son lying the night he was killed.
She explained how she hasn't brought Desmond's urn with his ashes out since the time he was killed. With his ashes in hand and with a warm smile, she said it was time and poured his ashes out so he could be free.
Desmond's family said these past 11 years have been extremely hard but they have finally made it out of the darkness and are praying for the soul that killed their loved one.
Annie Mae also said she wants the community to remember not only her grandson's case but also other unsolved murders like the killing of 33-year-old football coach Craig Truttling who was fatally shot last year. Zachary Blue, Deonte Redding, Darrien Jackson, Malique Brown and so many more.
