LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Two Little Rock men face murder charges, one has been caught, the other has not.
The 2017 case leaves a family in limbo. They are grateful for what’s been accomplished but pray for the case to be closed.
“When ever you look up and see Vince coming, you see that big smile first,” Mary Smith Vincent James’ mother said.
A smile that’s only a memory now.
Smith and her daughters remember the August day they found out James had been shot in his legs by two men waiting outside his home on Main Street back in 2017.
“That’s the hardest blow that a mother can experience when they tell you your child is not going to make it,” Smith said.
James died at the hospital.
After a two year investigation, 24-year-old Tevin Nelson was arrested for first degree murder.
But police say another man is also involved and he remains free.
“If you’re man enough to go out there and shoot somebody, you need to be man enough to man up to it,” Smith said.
But solving the ‘who’ in this case doesn’t answer the family’s big question of why?
“Some people say ‘closure.’ That book will always be open for me, but it would do me a lot of good to know why these two people did this,” Smith said.
A close-knit group, they’re finding joy in the life James lived, but say they will always feel his void.
“It’s like you’re trying to work a puzzle and that puzzle is never going to be complete because you don’t have that one piece to put in there,” she said.
And they know, even if the answers don’t come when they want them to, they’ll come right on time.
“I just want justice for my son,” Smith said.
Police have not released a description of the second suspect.
If you know anything about this case you’re asked to contact Little Rock Police.
