In the early morning hours of February 10, 2017, the life of 41-year-old Rodolfo Hernandez came to a violent end on a street in Phoenix, Arizona. Hernandez, a man whose life had seen periods of aimlessness and time in prison, was with a female companion near West Thomas Road when they were confronted by two armed men intent on robbery. A struggle ensued, a physical altercation born from the victims' refusal to submit to the demands of their attackers.
In the chaos of the fight, one of the assailants discharged his weapon, striking Hernandez.
The suspects, described as two men in their mid-20s wearing dark clothing, fled the scene in a dark-colored vehicle, leaving Hernandez mortally wounded and his companion injured from being pistol-whipped. Authorities arrived to find a grim tableau. Despite the efforts of emergency responders, Hernandez succumbed to his gunshot wound. In the years that have followed, his murder has remained an open and unsolved case, with no arrests made and the identities of the two men responsible still unknown to law enforcement.
Hernandez's sister, Annetta Roa, had been estranged from her brother for a couple of years prior to his death. She remembered a man who, in his younger days, was the 'life of the party.' While acknowledging the difficult path he had chosen in life, she spoke of the love that still existed for him. In the face of her family's tragedy, Roa publicly expressed forgiveness for her brother's unidentified killers, hoping that her plea might encourage someone with information to come forward and bring a measure of closure to a wound that remains open.
