A year without answers for two families

BALTIMORE -  

It is still a scar right in the middle of a Northeast Baltimore community.

It's where a year ago 58 year old Billy Ray Lovitt, his daughter Tanyika Gibbs and her boyfriend Michael Jones were murdered, shot to death and then set on fire.

The burned shell of a home a reminder of what happened, but still no clue as to why.

"We're really struggling to deal with the pain and the hurt that we have to deal with so if whoever out there that knows something, just tell it.  I don't care who you are, just say something," said Jones’ mother Bertina Ricks.

The not knowing is a pain wide enough to blanket two families; the mother of Michael Jones and the son and brother of the other two victims.

"We've been going through this for almost over a year, we have no leads, we have no suspects...it's been very hard for us," said Tyrell Lovitt.

So two days short of the exact year mark, both families joined the police to get answers.

They handed out flyers in and around the 43 hundred block of Nicholas Avenue in an attempt to dig up a new lead before this case gets too old...goes cold.

"They follow leads, of course you have evidence, forensic evidence that's left on the scene.  They've done all that they can do to weed through that but at this point, as you put it, yeah...they are pretty much stymied," said Baltimore Police Detective Donny Moses.

Stymied because it is a curious crime with no obvious motive; Lovitt was nearly sixty and recovering from surgery at the time of his killing and police say his daughter and her boyfriend were also not an obvious target.

Yet this was a special kind of violence inflicted on these families who believe they are dealing with a special kind of evil.

"And whoever done it out there, there is no peace for you.  You will not rest until you come to closure with it.  So we're suffering, you're suffering with holding this in to so you may as well just tell it," said Ricks.

Hoping to heal a scar not only visible on a quiet street corner, but in the eyes and souls of two families

If you know anything about this triple murder and arson, call crime stoppers at 877-LOCKUP.