PORTLAND, Ore. — Eight years ago, emergency lights flashed outside Dante's Nightclub in downtown Portland. Police tape lined Southwest 3rd Avenue and West Burnside Street, the area where a man had been shot and killed.
That 23-year-old man, killed by a gunshot, was Dion Anthony Matthews Jr.
"Eight years later, it’s still real tender," said Taunya Mayo, Matthews' mother.
While the crime scene is long gone, the pain that Mayo feels is not.
"So many cruel and just hateful people in the world, just evil. My son did not deserve this at all," she said.
Mayo said Matthews had a two-year-old son and one on the way when he was gunned down. His family remembers him as an energetic and encouraging young man, someone who was full of life.
"He was a great father. A loving, caring, great son and that’s what I am always going to cherish his memory by," she said.
But Mayo's grief runs deep years later and police have never found Matthews' killer.
"I know people know something. They've seen something because it was all over the news that night when it happened, people's cars scattered, people running," Mayo said.
She's asking for anyone who might know anything about the night Matthews was killed to speak up.
"Do the right thing. I know you’ve got a conscience, I know you’ve got a heart, and if you’ve got love in your heart for people, just stand up and do what’s right," Mayo pleaded.
While the loss is devastating, Mayo is comforted knowing someone sat with her son in his last moments.
"I just want to say thank you to whoever you are out there," she said. "[You] were there with my son to the last breath."
If you know anything about this case, you can contact the lead investigator Detective Rico Beniga. His contact information is 503-823-0457 or rico.beniga@police.portlandoregon.gov. Information can be submitted anonymously through Crime Stoppers of Oregon.