MOORESVILLE, N.C. — Cornell Harris will always cherish his wedding photos, but the one with his groomsman and friend Matthew Stewart holds a special place.
“He was really special to me because he would come by, talk to me about things going on in the church,” friend Cornell Harris said.
To Harris and others who knew him, Stewart was a man of faith, but also a friend, a husband, and a father of three.
[ FROM THE ARCHIVE: Police Search For Leads In Mooresville Murder ]
Police say he was at home in Mooresville on June 9, 2009, when someone broke in.
“To my knowledge, for him not to have any enemies, not to have anything negative that I could think of that would cause anyone to want to attack him and his family in that nature,” Harris said.
According to investigators, 31-year-old Stewart was in bed with his wife Angela and their toddler when she sensed someone else in the room around 12:30 a.m.
Police say that person shot Angela, but she was able to escape with the child to a neighbor’s home. Stewart fought back, and police said they found him dead in the bathroom, shot and stabbed multiple times.
His six-year-old daughter was unharmed.
“I remember it was very hectic. We had a lot of effort and a lot of manpower and equipment and everything we had. We threw at this thing. It was a very brutal, brutal crime,” Mooresville Police Department Assistant Chief Jamie Quinn said.
Quinn remembers getting called to the home on Shephard Hill Road.
“I think this person was targeting Mr. Stewart,” Quinn said. “I believe that this was something that he decided that needed to be done to Matthew.”
Channel Nine was there as investigators brought out bags of evidence and interviewed neighbors. Quinn hopes the global support this case has received will help lead to an arrest and conviction.
“We sent these over to England to have them tested. We had experts from the Ontario Provincial Police come in and help. We had FBI, ATF, Secret Service, Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department. We’ve had agencies from, like I said, all over the United States and the world that helped us with this investigation,” Quinn said.
The case has not gone cold in the last 17 years.
“We have never shelved this case or put it on the shelf and called it a cold case at all. Since June of 2009, there’s been constantly something going on in this case to try to bring it to a conclusion,” Quinn said.
Police say they continue to update Matt Stewart’s family when there’s new information.
But 17 years later, they still can’t say who killed him.
“Matt was very well loved, and you know a beloved father, husband, nurse. So there was just a lot of shock,” Freddie Wilson, podcast host of ‘Unforgotten: The Unsolved Murder of Matt Stewart’ said.
Freddie Wilson attended school with Stewart’s oldest daughter.
Nearly a decade later, he interviewed friends, family and witnesses for a podcast about the case, hoping to generate new leads.
“The frustration is certainly real, but there are many people that are really anxious to see answers and justice for Matt and his family,” Wilson said.
The community grew hopeful when police released this sketch of a suspect a year after the murder.
But Assistant Chief Quinn stressed there’s a big difference between making an arrest, and having the evidence to prosecute. We asked if police have ever identified a suspect.
“We haven’t named him publicly,” Quinn said.
Cornell Harris says he’s made it his mission to keep Matthew Stewart’s name alive.
He has faith that someday, Matt’s loved ones will get the answers they deserve.
“I know that his life physically was lost, but his soul is still in existence in heaven,” Harris said.