More than 30 of Charlotte's 85 homicides this year remain unsolved

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — It has been a heartbreaking year for so many Charlotte families.

With a week and a half until the new year, there have been 85 homicides.

Patrice Warren hung an ornament, and a prayer, on the tree commemorating Charlotte's homicide victims and remembered the brother she lost this year.

Jabari Stewart was shot and killed at his home in northwest Charlotte in January. He was one of the first victims of 2017.

“I don't think words can even describe,” Patrice Warren said. “A piece of me is gone and will always be gone.”

Eleven months later, the crime remains unsolved and Stewart’s family is still waiting for answers.

“He was a kind and gentle soul. He was a small giant,” Anthony Warren, Jabari’s brother-in-law, said. “We know that there's someone in the community or somewhere around here that knows something.”

More than 30 of Charlotte's homicide investigations are unsolved.

Adrian Harris said she prays every day that police will find out who killed her teenage son, Tyshaud Brown, on a school playground in March.

Harris’s pain is shared by a community that has watched the homicide numbers rise again.

“I pray that God gives me strength and peace,” Harris said.

Judy Williams, with Mothers of Murdered Offspring, has catalogued every single one of Charlotte's murders.

“I don't always remember the names, but I don't forget the faces,” Williams said. “Every time, especially when it's the children. When this stuff spills over to where people are killing children, we should all stay up at night and pray.”

Police have expressed their frustration over guns that are too easy to find on the streets and disagreements that turn deadly.

“We feel for these families, we feel for the community, and it's our charge to make sure their memory is upheld,” CMPD Dep. Chief Jeff Estes said.

“I'm never going to give up hope,” Williams said. “I think when we give up on each other we have nowhere to go but down. As long as we have hope, we can start reaching up and climbing and trying to make things better, but a lack of hope gives you nothing.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions was in Charlotte this week to announce a new task force to combat the city's violent crime.

The task force team will focus on bank robberies, carjackings, kidnappings and extortion.

During his speech, Sessions spoke about taking back communities that have been over-run with criminals.

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