KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A search for a KCPD Chief of Police, recent changes to staffing with the cold case unit and a rising homicide rate in Kansas City, Missouri, once again.
All of this is weighing on families who have gone years without answers to who killed their loved ones. But one local organization is hoping to help.
"All I want to know [is] who murdered my daughter before god calls me," Diane Cubie, who lost her daughter Kylie Cubie in April 2018, said.
It's a question that remains unanswered for Cubie's family ever since someone shot the mother of two.
"My grandkids, they ask me every other day, ‘Grandma are we ever going to know who killed my mom? I say, ‘Baby I don't know,'" Diane Cubie said. "All I can go by [is] when they come and tell me."
Although Diane Cubie has a hunch on what may have happened in her daughter's death, she said detectives haven't found witnesses or evidence to back it up.
"And the police can only do so much. They trying and they’re doing their job, it’s what the people telling them. If nobody comes forward and tell them, what else can they do?" Diane Cubie said.
In what's turning out to be another deadly year in KCMO, KCPD data shows the homicide unit has cleared about half of the cases.
Cubie thinks it could be more if only the public cooperated.
"They probably know who did it and then they are afraid to come forward, because they’ll get hurt after they come through," she said.
KSHB 41 News asked Diane Cubie what can be done to change this.
"Well I don’t know how to do that," she said.
When Rosilyn Temple's son was murdered on Thanksgiving Eve in 2011, she started "KC Mothers in Charge" to help other grieving families.
Her son's killer still hasn't been caught.
"And no one has stepped up for me," Temple said. "We know who's killing. We know who's doing the shooting, we know who's doing the hurting. We have to get them help, people make bad choices, yes, they do. But we have to start addressing them people and give them some help."
On Wednesday afternoon, KC Mothers in Charge and members of law enforcement will gather at east 40th Street and south Benton Avenue to let residents know about crime prevention efforts.
However, people can help by submitting tips anonymously by scanning a QR code.
"It may be a chance that your child's case would never be solved, if you keep living in a community where people don't speak up," Temple said. "It's time for us to speak up and speak out and do something."
KSHB 41 News asked KCPD when a case would be considered cold and received the following response:
"Each case is different, it is worked until all investigative leads are exhausted, all evidence is processed and analyzed and all witnesses and involved persons are thoroughly interviewed and talked to. This can take a different amount of time depending on how much of these things are available. Once all of that is exhausted the case would be considered “cold”, which would mean in most cases that it would take “new information” to come forward in order to conduct more investigation. That can happen in a number of ways, most common, a new tip comes in, or someone comes forward with information about the case. When that happens a detective is assigned to follow up on that new info and re-examine the case as applicable. That is why you will see from time to time we will host family of a murder victim for a media briefing to try to get the word out to drum up new information on their case, that new information is what the detective may need to move the case forward."
