In 2013, a young father's life was cut short on the far east side of Indianapolis. Dontrell Hanyard, a 21-year-old Black male, was murdered outside of an apartment complex. At the time of his death, Hanyard was an employee at Amazon and was the father of a three-year-old daughter named Dezire. His mother, Latricia Hanyard, remembers him as a 'good kid and loving father who would give you the shirt off his back.'
The investigation into Hanyard's death has not led to any arrests, and his killer remains unknown. His mother has expressed her profound grief and frustration with the lack of progress in the case. She believes that law enforcement has not given her son's murder the attention it deserves, viewing it as another unsolved crime in the Black community. While she acknowledged that her son had drugs in his possession when he died and had been dealing to friends, she firmly states that it did not give anyone the right to take his life.
The pain of her son's unsolved murder is a constant for Latricia Hanyard. She shared that she had moved her family from Gary, Indiana, a city with a high murder rate, to Indianapolis in hopes of a better and safer life. The tragic irony of her son being murdered in their new city is a heavy burden she carries. She mourns the loss of her child, stating, 'All these murder victims is someone's child… is my child, and I still love him no matter what he did in life… I'm not going to see my son no more, and it hurts.'
