Will their killers get away with murder?

Clarence Atkins

On the night of Feb. 29, 2008, Clarence Akins, 42, was found by police officers shot outside a home in the 2900 block of East 30th Street, near South Country Club Road, miles from where he lived.

That's all his family knows.

"All we know is he was found shot to death in someone's front yard, so nobody has any closure. No one knows what's going on," said his niece, Evonne Bruner, who remembers Akins as "the fun uncle."

"Clarence was the one who would come and take us bowling every Saturday or skating, to water parks. Everything fun I remember was with my Uncle Clarence. He treated us like we were his kids. He was the person to make everyone laugh. He would embarrass you, but you would end up laughing. He liked to play cards. He was a mama's boy; he and his mom were best friends. He was a helper. If you needed money, if you needed a ride, he would help anyone. Everyone liked to be around Clarence because he was so much fun.

"Clarence was always the male role model in my life," Bruner said.

Gabe Molina, a longtime friend of Akins', remembers him as a family man.

"He loved his kids. He participated and was involved in everything that they did. There are a lot of fathers who are, unfortunately, not involved in their children's lives, and he was very involved.

"He played baseball for Amphi High School. He was really good. His kids are really athletic also," Molina said, noting that Akins' eldest daughter plays college softball now.

Molina believes someone in their circle of acquaintances has information about the Akins homicide.

"It's kind of upsetting that somebody knows something and ... nobody wants to get involved. Nobody wants to say anything. It's really frustrating."

Lisa Atkins

Andres Ballesteros

Andres Ballesteros was shot and killed on March 6, 2013 outside his home in the 400 block of W. Kentucky Street. 

Sephaul Booker

Sephaul Booker, 15, was found dead in a parking lot in the 3700 block of East Fourth Street, near North Alvernon Way in the spring of 2016. 

Police responded to a 911 call reporting a shooting. When officers arrived, they found the teen with obvious signs of trauma. 

Officers performed CPR on the boy until Tucson Fire Department paramedics arrived and took over treatment. The teen was pronounced dead at the scene. 

Erick Bridges

Garfield "Gary" Ruel Brown

No attempt was made to hide the body of Garfield Ruel "Gary" Brown.

The long-haul trucker was shot in the head, shoved out of his big rig's cab and left on the east shoulder of Garvey Road about four miles west of the Avra Valley Airport. He was found about eight hours later, just after 3 p.m. May 19, 1998. He had no shoes and no identification. That same day, his leased semi was found abandoned in Winslow, the cab spattered with blood, the trailer missing.

Brown, who immigrated to the United States from Jamaica a year before his death, had worked as a truck driver for Sterling International Enterprise near Atlanta. On his last run, he was hauling paper products from California to the East Coast. Investigators said Brown picked up his load in the first few days of May, then spent a few days in Phoenix for reasons unknown. In a May 21, 1998, Tucson Citizen article, a sheriff's detective speculated the Georgia resident, 29, was hauling "illegal goods" in addition to the paper products.

Midmorning the day he died, Brown fueled up his 1998 green Volvo semi, which was towing a Sterling International trailer, before having breakfast at a Casa Grande truck stop. Tire tracks on the shoulder of the road where Brown's body was dumped hours later showed the rig was no longer pulling the trailer.

Brown was 5 feet 8 inches tall, weighed 215 pounds, had a flag tattoo on his right forearm and a light mustache and goatee. When his body was found, Brown was wearing Tommy Hilfiger jeans, short Nike socks and a dark-blue T-shirt with a gold logo that read, "Off Rodeo Hollywood."

Jeanette Elizabeth Brown

Jeanette Elizabeth Brown was well-known by police in South Tucson, where she was arrested a number of times for prostitution.

She was last seen alive on June 12, 1997, in the area of South Fourth Avenue and Interstate 10. A month later, her decomposing body was found at the bottom of a steep 100-foot embankment along Redington Road.

Clad only in a black sports bra, Brown was found rolled in carpeting that was bound with wire. Sheriff's investigators estimated she'd been dead about a week when she was found July 15, 1997. The blond-haired, blue-eyed Brown, who was 5 feet tall and weighed 140 pounds, was still wearing several pieces of jewelry: a single gold-color hoop earring and two rings - one a gold-color band with a diamond chip; the other gold and silver in color, adorned with the image of the Virgin Mary.

Police used a tattoo on her left ankle - a flower with the name "Dillon" inked across it - and dental records to identify her.

Brown was a mother, but her children were not living with her at the time of her death. She would have turned 30 the week her body was found.

Because of decomposition, investigators could not determine a cause of death, though at the time detectives said her slaying did not appear random, according to an Arizona Daily Star story. 

Isabel Celis

Six-year-old Isabel Celis went missing from her bedroom in her family’s midtown home in 2012. It was during the night, while the family slept. No one heard sounds, not even from the family’s dogs. Her father, Sergio, reported her missing on the morning of April 21, 2012. Her mother had already left for work.

Victor Cibrian-Beltran

Victor Cibrian-Beltran was killed in May, 2016 on the southwest side of Tucson. 

Cibrian-Beltran was a caretaker for a property. He was on the property the evening of May 18 when witnesses said they heard arguing and gunshots. 

It also appeared the front gate of the property may have been run over by a vehicle. 

Lashad Amarr Cooper

Zachary Corbut

Johnny Corrales

Johnny Corrales was shot and killed during an altercation with two people in a parking lot of an AMPM store on the corner of S. 12th Avenue and W. Irvington Road on March 1, 1998.

The suspects fled on foot and were not located. 

Brian Leigh Davis

Brian Leigh Davis was out to have a good time when he arrived at a party Oct. 19, 1984.

The shindig, at an apartment complex in the 700 block of East First Street, had been going on for most of the day, and neighbors later reported revelers had become increasingly rowdy.

Around 8:30 p.m. Davis, 24, got into a fight inside the apartment with a party crasher, according to an Arizona Daily Star story. When the fight moved outside the apartment Davis was shot once in the head. He died at the hospital early the next morning.

The shooter, who was seen by as many as 25 witnesses, was described as a bearded man with wavy hair, clad in dark clothing, between 25 and 30 years old, standing 5-foot-8 to 5-foot-10 inches tall. He fled on bicycle.

Debra Donohue

Norma Jay

Juan Antonio Espinosa

Marcos Luis Felix

Marcos Luis Felix was found at the Lazy V Saloon, 2812 W. Alvaro Road, on Oct. 19, 2011. A witness said the victim had been in a physical altercation prior to his death. 

Tracy Feltes

DeAntae Lee Fuller

DeAntae Lee Fuller, 20, was found early in the morning on Sunday, March 27, 2016, wounded by gunshots in the parking lot of an apartment complex in the 700 block of South Tucson Boulevard.

Antonio Flores

Antonio Flores, 17, was shot and killed in the fall of 2013. 

The incident happened at a Circle K at South Campbell Avenue and East Drexel Road. Flores and five others were in a Chevrolet Silverado parked at the store when a dark-colored vehicle approached. 

Police believe he was killed by someone in a “greenish-colored sport utility vehicle, van or crossover-type vehicle." 

Sallie Garcia

An absentee father and a mother in jail weren't going to deter 19-year-old Sallie Garcia from pursuing her dream of becoming a lawyer. She was studying business at the Fred G. Acosta Job Corps Center and looking forward to when she could afford a Jaguar.

But determination was no match against the few ounces of metal that ripped through Garcia's body in the early hours of April 6, 2003.

Garcia and her friends had just arrived at a party in an apartment complex in the 2500 block of West Anklam Road, near North Greasewood Road, when she was shot at about 1:15 a.m.

Another party guest rushed Garcia to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

Five other party-goers were injured in the shooting. One of them, Jack G. Taylor, a 20-year-old father, died in the hospital the next day.

STATUS

At the time, police investigators found evidence of multiple shooters taking aim at partygoers from behind a wall surrounding the apartment complex.

However, with no suspects and no new evidence, the case is considered cold and has been closed by the Tucson Police Department, which last reviewed it in June 2009.

ABOUT THE SERIES

The Star features some of the Tucson area's violent crimes that remain unsolved - sometimes many years later.

Anyone with information is urged to call 88-CRIME. Tips also can be submitted online at www.88crime.org; or by text message at 274637, then enter tip259 plus your text message.

Contact reporter Kimberly Matas at kmatas@azstarnet.com or at 573-4191 if you have been a victim of an unsolved crime or if you are related to a victim.

Maribel Victoria Gonzales

The body of Maribel Victoria Gonzales was found June 6, 2014 northwest of Tucson, on the east side of Trico Road, about a half-mile south of Avra Valley Road, authorities said.

Deputy Ryan Inglett, a sheriff's spokesman, said that detectives recently discovered additional information in the case that led them back Oct. 25 to the desert area where the teen's body was found. The cause of her death has not been released.

She was last seen at about 8 p.m., June 3, when she told her mother she was going to a friend's house. When Gonzales did not return by morning, her mother called the friend and learned she never arrived.

Because of decomposition, the medical examiner’s office had to wait for the results of DNA tests before Gonzales could be positively identified.

Gale Green

Rodolfo "Rudy" Herreras

Liquor was Rodolfo "Rudy" Herreras' undoing.

The former Marine, who was an Arizona Army National Guardsman, had been in legal trouble for his drinking. He was riding his bicycle to a midtown bar the evening of Jan. 30, 2004, because his driver's license had been revoked.

Earlier in the evening, he was at the Disabled American Veterans post at 4656 E. First St., near North Swan Road, talking with fellow vets. Herreras, 38, had an aptitude for computers and often helped DAV patrons with theirs.

Herreras left the DAV post to play pool at another midtown bar on 22nd Street between Craycroft and Swan roads, but he never made it. He was attacked in the parking lot in the 4800 block of East 22nd Street by at least two men, and as many as five, who jumped out of a light-colored Cadillac with a tire cover attached to the trunk. The vehicle also had gold trim. Witnesses said the men were wearing all-white work clothes. By the time police arrived, the men had fled.

Herreras lingered in and out of consciousness for two weeks. He died of his head injuries on Valentine's Day 2004.

Dianne Hundt

Dianne Hundt left home a little before 10 p.m. New Year's Eve 1985.

The 17-year-old needed to get out of the house after a spat with her family.

The next day, Hundt's body - still clad in blue jeans and a sweat shirt - was found by bow hunters on the east side, in the desert near North El Camino Rinconado and East Tanque Verde Road. She had been strangled.

The Sahuaro High School junior, who attended special-education classes, had recently cut her brown hair in a "punk style" that sheriff's investigators at the time described as very short on the sides and "round on top." She also wore braces on her teeth. The night of her disappearance, she was wearing colorful plastic bracelets on her wrist.

In newspaper reports, Hundt was described by her family as shy, innocent and introverted. She had no history of drug abuse or legal problems.

Clarence "Butch" Ibach

Clarence "Butch" Ibach, a widowed retiree from Texas, shared his tidy Foothills mobile home with a wiggly little dog named Flip.

He'd been living at the Friendly Village of the Catalinas mobile home park on West River Road barely six months when he was beaten to death in his living room.

A neighbor stopped by to check on Ibach the morning of May 21, 1987, and found the 76-year-old man sitting on the couch, dead; his face bloodied from the attack, the telephone receiver dangling off the hook next to him.

Ibach had last been seen alive the previous night when his niece visited.

Flip, his sassy pup, was unharmed in the attack and was taken in by a neighbor.

Though no murder weapon was found, it appears Ibach was beaten in the head with a golf club, said Deputy Jason Ogan, a spokesman for the Pima County Sheriff's Department.

Heather Johnson

Heather Johnson was a "chronic runaway," according to sheriff's investigators.

The last time she walked out of her family's Catalina home in 1985, the 17-year-old never returned.

Johnson had a history of drug use and ran with the wrong crowd, but she was trying to turn her life around by training with Job Corps, her family said at the time.

On Sept. 2, 1985, she drove to Phoenix with a friend to attend an Aerosmith-Scorpions concert. The pair returned to Tucson, and she stayed the night at her friend's midtown home. The next morning her friend went to work. When he came home, Johnson was gone. Her purse and personal belongings were left behind.

Three months later, on Dec. 1, 1985, hikers looking for meteorites found her skeletal remains in a remote area near Ryan Airfield.

Johnson stood 5-foot-4-inches tall, weighed 120 pounds, had long brown hair and hazel eyes. She was last seen in the 0-to-100 block of West Laguna Street, near Glenn Street and Stone Avenue, wearing pink jogging shorts and a blue-and-white-striped tank top. No clothing was found with her remains.

STATUS

Johnson's case remains open but is dormant, according to Deputy Dawn Barkman, spokeswoman for the Pima County Sheriff's Department. It was last reviewed earlier this year.

ABOUT THE SERIES

The Star will feature some of the Tucson-area violent crimes that remain unsolved - sometimes many years later.

Anyone with information is urged to call 88-CRIME. Tips also can be submitted online at www.88crime.org; or by text message at 274637, then enter tip259 plus your text message.

Contact reporter Kimberly Matas at kmatas@azstarnet.com or at 573-4191 if you have been a victim of an unsolved crime or if you are related to a victim.

Verna McDougal

On May 23, 2004, Verna McDougal was in the parking lot of a business on the south-east corner of Broadway and Camino Seco when she was knocked to the ground during a purse snatching.  The victim sustained injuries from the assault that resulted in her death on June 3, 2004.  The suspect, who was described as a Caucasian male, ran into the neighborhood south of the shopping center.

Marlana McElvaine

Marlana McElvaine disappeared in 2010, just before her 28th birthday.

She went missing from a rented house in the 900 block of West Missouri she shared with her two young children and their father.

There has been no activity on her credit cards since Sept. 12, 2010, and her car was found abandoned near South Cardinal Avenue and West Valencia Road on the southwest side of Tucson near the Tohono O'odham Nation.

Family members insist McElvaine never would have left her then-4-month-old daughter, Athena, and her 2 1/2-year-old son, Xavier. The names of her children, along with the words "Big Joe," a tribute to their father, were tattooed on her right shoulder.

McElvaine is 5 feet 7 inches tall and weighs 155 pounds. She has long brown hair, brown eyes and scars on her inner-right forearm.

Though classified as a missing-persons case, it is being investigated by homicide detectives, said Sgt. Judy Allen with the Tucson Police Department.

"Our investigation leads us to believe there is foul play and we are investigating some possible leads, but at this point we don't have any clearly defined suspects," she said.

Edward A. McGuire

Edward A. McGuire, 22, was fatally shot in central Tucson on Feb. 12, 2017. 

McGuire was shot when the occupants of two vehicles fired at each other in the parking lot. Hewas a passenger in one of the vehicles. Police do not know whether McGuire knew the occupants of the other vehicle. 

Anna Marie Molina

Anna Marie Molina disappeared after a night of partying one summer.

She and a friend were bar hopping the night of Aug. 9, 1993, but the women went their separate ways after their last stop, a south-side bar then called Sunny's Pub, at 5442 S. 12th Ave.

Molina, who was wearing a floral-print dress, got a ride home from two men at about 12:30 a.m. Aug. 10, and the trio partied into the morning.

When questioned by investigators, one of the men told Tucson police he had dropped off his buddy at his home before he and Molina went for a drive. Molina, in the meantime, had called her boss at the fast-food restaurant where she worked and said she could not come in that day.

The man told police he had dropped Molina at a convenience store at South Park Avenue and East Ajo way at about 10 that morning.

Later that day, a woman in Three Points called police to report she had found Molina's purse, which still contained a small amount of cash, on the roadside near West Ajo Way and South Comanche Road about 15 miles west of downtown Tucson.

Molina was 34 when she disappeared. She was described as 5 feet tall and 120 pounds with black hair and brown eyes.

Michael Molina

Analissa Monares-Leon

Analissa Monares-Leon, 6, was killed after a bullet blasted a hole through the front door of her Southwest Side home and struck her as she lay sleeping on a couch in October, 2007. 

She was shot just before 5 a.m. as she slept near the front of her home in the 2200 block of West Dakota Street, near South Mission and West Irvington roads. 

Billy Montoya Jr.

The world, for Billy Montoya Jr., revolved around Elmo, riding his tricycle and his "Nana."

The 2-year-old, nicknamed "Peanut," was full of energy and played in his front yard every day. In the evenings he'd wait in the yard for his grandmother to come home from work. He was taught to wait in the yard, but on the evening of Oct. 20, 2008, the excitement of seeing his grandmother overwhelmed him. At about 8 p.m., Billy saw his grandmother get dropped off on South Park Avenue near East Irvington Road, across the street from their home.

The toddler bolted into the street to greet her. The move was unexpected, and the teenage relative watching Billy could not catch up to him in time. The boy was hit and killed by a southbound truck. The driver did not stop.

The truck was described as a 2007 or 2008 Chevrolet Silverado with a chrome roll bar, likely maroon, dark red or black, and it was the LS or LT model, according to police.

Charles Morgan

Jesse Morgan

Edward Murphy

Edward Murphy, 29, was found lying in the roadway at the intersection of East 32nd Street in October 2014. 

Amber Christine Padilla

A man walking his dog in the desert near Corona de Tucson the morning of Dec. 14, 2010, made a grisly discovery.

He found the burned body of 20-year-old Amber Christine Padilla near Houghton Road and Camino Aurelia, southeast of Tucson.

The remains of the 5-foot-3-inch student, who had brown hair and a light complexion, were found almost 50 miles from her Marana home.

Marisol Padilla

Harold "Jack" Parsons

By all accounts, Harold "Jack" Parsons was an affable and civic-minded businessman.

That's why it came as a shock to colleagues in Tucson's business community when Parsons was found severely beaten in his Catalina Foothills home Dec. 24, 1985. Parsons, 72, died at the hospital that same day.

Sheriff's deputies conducting a welfare check found Parsons on his bed, unconscious. It appeared Parsons had been attacked in his backyard and assaulted with a blunt object, according to Arizona Daily Star reports. The attacker followed Parsons into his home and continued to beat him. Parsons, founder of Aquadene Inc., a water-treatment business, also was Maced, said Jason Ogan, spokesman for the Pima County Sheriff's Department.

The day of his death a dark-skinned man in his 20s used Parsons' credit cards at two shopping malls in the Phoenix area. The suspect was described by sales clerks as 5-foot-8, weighing 140 pounds, with dark hair and a high voice. His right hand was badly bruised and bandaged.

Gail Parker

Elizabeth Quinn

Elizabeth "Betty" Quinn, 84, was beaten to death in the midtown home she'd occupied for nearly 60 years.

Quinn had raised her three children in the home, in the 4200 block of East Kilmer Street, and felt safe there. She was a cautious woman who wouldn't open the door to strangers. 

Quinn's daughter in California became alarmed when she couldn't reach her mother by phone on Feb. 4, 2007. The next day, when police arrived at the home to do a welfare check, they found Quinn's body.

Missing were Quinn's purse and possibly some pain medication.

Kyle Riley

Juan Ruben Rodriguez

Juan Ruben Rodriguez was shot at a party nearly 14 years ago, but Sandra Medina feels the pain of her son’s death as keenly today as if no time had passed.

Just the mention of her son’s name before a news conference at Homicide Survivors on Friday morning caused her to sob.

“To me it’s like it just happened yesterday,” Medina said. “We all make mistakes in life, but he was very loving and caring. He was a good kid. He was kind. He had a good heart.”

A $1,000 reward is being offered for information about Anthony Seth Burroughs’ whereabouts, but Medina is organizing a series of fundraisers in the next few months with a goal of increasing the reward to $10,000.

Medina was joined at the news conference by one of her son’s three daughters, 15-year-old Myah Rodriguez.

“It was hard growing up without a dad,” Myah said. “I never really knew how it felt” to have a father.

Rodriguez, 19, was at a party on the west side April 30, 2000, when he got into a fight and was shot twice.

Burroughs was charged with first-degree murder, but fled the country immediately after the shooting, said Deputy U.S. Marshal Jennifer Rippey, who was assigned to the case last year.

Within 24 hours of the slaying, Burroughs fled to Mexico, returned to Tucson, flew from Phoenix to Los Angeles and went on to the Philippines, Rippey said. Burroughs’ mother is from the Philippines and he still has family there, but after 14 years, his whereabouts are unknown.

“He likely assumed a new identity. There’s no record of him after early May 2000,” Rippey said.

Burroughs still has family in Tucson and California.

At the time of the shooting, Burroughs was 21. He weighed about 200 pounds and stands 5-feet-7-inches tall. He has black hair and brown eyes and had several tattoos — the name “Adriana” on his chest, “Burroughs” on his back, “Hate” on his left arm and “Love” on his right arm. His birth date is March 13, 1979.

He also has a scar on his right foot, a gunshot wound from the night of the party.

Rodriguez was shot just before 4 a.m. at a party in the 1200 block of South Camino Santiago near West Starr Pass and South La Cholla boulevards.

About 200 people were at the party dancing and singing when “Tony and Ruben exchanged words and Tony fired,” Rippey said. She did not know if the men were acquaintances since Burroughs lived on Tucson’s east side and Rodriguez lived on the south side.

“Tony committed a homicide. He’s a violent individual,” Rippey said.

Online court records show Burroughs was found guilty of assault in 1998, and he had been found guilty multiple times in 1998 and 1999 of supplying alcohol to minors.

Anyone with information about Burroughs or the shooting should call 911 or 88-CRIME. Callers can remain anonymous.

Charles and Leslie Rupert

For newlyweds Charles and Leslie Rupert, one of their marriage vows, "until death do us part," came sooner than they could have anticipated.

The young husband and wife, graduate students at the University of Arizona, were shot execution-style in February 1975, their bodies left in a drainage ditch along Interstate 10.

On the night of Feb. 1, 1975, the Ruperts were driving home from the Fort Grant Training Center near Safford, where they had attended a banquet for the Seventh Step Foundation, an organization that helped ex-convicts. Charles, 27, met his wife, 22, while both were students in the school's public administration graduate program. They shared an interest in prisoner rehabilitation.

The couple left the banquet at 10:45 p.m. A passing motorist found their bodies along the interstate near Vail Road 24 hours later. Charles had been shot once in the side of the head and twice in the back with a .38-caliber revolver. Leslie was shot once behind the ear. Their car was found hours later at the junction of I-10 and Interstate 8 south of Casa Grande. The car had been wiped clean of fingerprints except for what appeared to be the letter "p" written on the rear window.

Police at the time could not determine the location where the couple had been shot. The back seat of the car was stained with "a considerable amount of blood," but there was no blood trail leading from the roadway to the drainage ditch where the bodies were found.

Robbery, apparently, was not a motive for the killing, since money was found with the bodies.

Investigators, at the time, estimated the Ruperts were shot between midnight and 2 a.m. Feb. 2. A gas-station attendant near where their sedan was found said he saw a stocky, brown-haired man in his mid- to late 20s pull the car into his station between 1:30 and 5 a.m.

Donald G. Scism

Donald G. Scism, a 33-year-old Navy vet, was trying to get his life together when he was killed Oct. 12, 2002.

Though still recovering from a head injury he'd suffered a year earlier in a fight, Scism had just completed a college program to become an airplane mechanic.

Police found Scism dead at his home in the 8300 block of East Wildcat Drive on the east side. Upon arrival, homicide detectives also found a homemade explosive inside the house, which stopped the death investigation for about two hours as a hazardous-materials team removed the device.Sara Smith met Scism when he dated her sister.

Joseph Anthony Simental

Joseph Anthony Simental, a 27-year-old father of two, was at his cousin's house with a couple of friends when he was shot and killed in the early morning hours of April 24, 2004.

The construction worker was alone in a room at the house, in the 2800 block of West Quail Road, near South Cardinal Avenue and West Valencia Road, when he was shot at about 3:30 a.m. After hearing a noise, Simental's cousin came into the room to find his guest dead on the floor. Investigators suspect the two companions, men in their mid-20s, in Simental's killing

Simental's own run-ins with the law and possible gang ties might have provided a motive in his killing, said Deputy Jason Ogan, a Pima County Sheriff's Department spokesman.

Simental, also known by the nickname "Rage," was sentenced to more than three years in prison in 1996 for two counts of attempted armed robbery.

Thomas Stephenson

Ernesto Talamantez Aros Jr.

Ernesto Talamantez Aros Jr. tried to get out of the way when a fight broke out at the house party he was attending the night of Oct. 9, 2005, in a neighborhood near "A" Mountain.

"He was running and pushed my nephew out of the way, and he was shot in the back," said Aros' mother, Rebecca Lock. Her son, 25, died in the street near West Congress Street and Westmoreland Avenue.

"The shooting was a result of a confrontation at the party, so therefore it was not completely random, but it is unknown if Aros was specifically targeted. There were at least three other individuals injured during the incident - not necessarily from gunfire," Sgt. Matt Ronstadt said, emphasizing that Aros was not a gang member.

A 24-year-old woman who had been at the party was arrested in connection with Aros' death. In exchange for testifying about what happened the night of the shooting, she was given a plea deal, Lock said. However, the woman never revealed what she knew. "It was like a slap on the hand, and she never did say what happened," Lock said. "That young lady and her friends and the people who lived in that house know exactly what happened, but they won't say anything."

Tomas Tovar

Cheri Tyra

Cheri Tyra had just settled into her new apartment when she was killed.

The 22-year-old was trying to get her life together after she fell in with a crowd more interested in cocaine than attending class.

She dropped out of Sunnyside High School at 17, but after several years Tyra cleaned herself up and got a job as a secretary, said her family. She quit her job six weeks before her death.

Tyra's nude body was discovered in the desert July 2, 1988, by teens riding ATVs near West Valencia and South Mark roads. Police estimated she had been strangled between 24 and 36 hours earlier. She was identified by a tattoo on her hand.

A neighbor saw Tyra leave her apartment in the 400 block of West Miracle Mile in the early afternoon of July 1, 1988, a Friday, with a man described as a "good-looking," well-tanned Anglo with "piercing eyes."

The man was estimated to be in his mid-30s, standing 5-foot-9 and weighing between 160 and 180 pounds. He was stocky, clean cut and had light brown hair.

The pair left in the man's gold-color Jeep pickup with a striped serape draped across the bench seat and a white utility box behind the cab.

At the time of her death, investigators said Tyra was associated "with active prostitutes and drug users."

The night before she disappeared, she was trying to buy marijuana, according to newspaper reports.

Ray Tyson

Ray Tyson, 23, was found dead in an apartment at 7700 E. Speedway Blv. on April 23, 2012. 

Tyson had not been heard from since April 14, 2012. He had suffered from several gunshots and officials ruled his death a homicide. 

Ricardo Varela

As a reward for finishing his school year, 15-year-old Ricardo Varela got to spend the weekend with his cousins at his grandmother's home.

Within hours, though, the weekend turned tragic. The Canyon Rose Academy freshman was killed as a result of a drive-by shooting.

Ricardo's father, Bobby Varela, remembers the last time he saw his son alive. It was Friday morning, Feb. 4, 2008. They talked about the weekend before Varela left for work. That evening Ricardo went to his grandmother's house in the 800 block of Calle Matus, near West Grant Road and North 15th Avenue. He had just stepped out of the house and into the carport where his uncles were playing cards when he was shot in the head. Ricardo died the next day at the hospital.

Police, at the time, suspected the shots came from a white, four-door pickup-style Cadillac Escalade. No one else was injured.

"Whoever did this, they didn't know him," Varela said. "They took an innocent kid. He didn't have anything to do with whatever was going on."

Osvaldo Raul Vargas

Osvaldo Raul Vargas, 35, and two of his neighbors were standing outside Vargas’ home in the 400 block of West 19th Street near South Osborne Avenue, when a red or maroon SUV pulled up and someone inside fired at the home.

Vargas was a delivery driver for a mattress company and arrived home from work at about 9 p.m. the evening he was shot. 

Diana Dawn Vicari

Diana Dawn Vicari's body has never been found. But on Oct. 24, 1992, her arms were found in a trash bin behind a business at West 17th Street and North Ferro Avenue, one block west of North Sixth Avenue and south of East Sixth Street.

On Oct. 26, 1992, Vicari's 1981 gray Ford Mustang was found in the 1200 block of West La Osa, with her purse, books and other items intact. Tucson police and the Vicari family are asking for the public's help in solving the mystery of her death, which is being investigated as a murder.

Vicari, 19, was last seen by her family on Oct. 22, 1992. She apparently attended a Pima Community College drama class at Palo Verde High School and later drove a classmate home. Vicari was then seen in the parking lot of the Tucson Convention Center.

Jennifer Ann Wilson

Tucson police and firefighters found the body of Jennifer Ann Wilson, 50, in a northside alley Sept. 17, 2017. 

The woman had suffered trauma, Tucson police said in a news release. Her body was found in an alley south of Navajo Road and west of Fontana Avenue around 2:30 p.m after a 911 call. Homicide detectives are investigating her death.