LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB)-- It may have been Thanksgiving, but it looked like Valentine's Day in Jefferson Square Park Thursday afternoon. Stephan Faulkner's family, with red heart balloons in hand, showed love for him.
"Love you baby. Rest in heaven," Stephan's mom, Tracy said as the balloons were released.
The 19-year-old was killed a week before Thanksgiving 2016.
"My son got murdered in front of me and there was nothing I could do," Tracy Faulkner explained.
Stephan Faulkner was one of two shot outside a home on Ratcliffe Avenue. At the time the family was already dealing with the unsolved murder of Stephan's 20-year-old half-brother Benjamin Turner.
Then as Stephan's family planned his funeral, bullets riddled the house for the second time.
Since 2016, life for Tracy Faulkner has been trying. Getting out of bed for Thanksgiving, before this year, seemed impossible.
Then the two-year mark officially hit, turning the homicide with no arrests, into a cold case. That milestone though seems to have fueled the murder victim's mother.
"It's a cold case, but I'm not going to give up," she said. "That's the system. That's not me."
She's taking stock in what she still has, and is finding new confidence that questions will be answered.
"I know it's going to happen," Tracy Faulkner said. "I keep deep prayer in God. I know it's going to happen. I might not get it today. I might not get it in ten years, but I know it's going to happen."
None of it will bring Stephan back, but she thinks it may one day give her the peace to celebrate Thanksgiving again.
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