BERKELEY, Calif. (KRON) — Five-years ago, on August 19, 2016, someone knocked on the door of 22-year-old Alex Goodwin’s family’s house.
It is located in Berkeley’s San Pablo Park neighborhood.
When he went outside to check — he was gunned down.
And, today, the case remains cold.
“The people involved — every time they pass this house, they’re going to see this reminder of Alex,” Sarah Patterson, Alex’s grandmother, said.
A mural painted on the home serves as a reminder for the community that the musician’s case is still open, and requires witnesses to come forward in order to be solved.
“Justice for me would just: someone being held accountable and being put in jail for this crime that they did,” Alex’s older sister Aneka Boykin said.
In 2019, the Berkeley City Council approved the police department’s request to increase the reward money in this case from $15,000 to $50,000.
And that reward is still on the table.
Money that will be distributed to those who provide information leading to an arrest and conviction.
“The people who did this cannot just go on continuing to believe that they can just devastate our world and not have consequences and not have to pay for it,” Kameka Goodwin, Alex’s mother, said.
Loved one’s describe Alex as an artist who made people laugh and stayed out of trouble.
His grandmother Sarah Patterson says she misses her right hand man.
“He calls me grams and he drove for me, he was my driver, he was my shopper,” she said. “You know, he did all those wonderful things for his grandmother.”
And the Goodwin family is hoping to return the favors by encouraging potential witnesses to share information that could close the book on this case.