Police said that they arrested a killer seven months after the murder of a Columbus father.
The arrest brought some solace to the family of Maurice Roberts, who was shot to death on March 16 while visiting a friend on Cordell Avenue.
Police charged 24-year-old Quincey Harris Jr. with murder.
The heartbroken face of Roberts' 7-year-old daughter, Mauricesa, and the raw emotions of a grieving mother remain months after Roberts’ slaying.
“I’ve had plenty of people tell me, you know, life goes on and you’re going to have to move on,” the victim’s mother Frances Roberts said. “Don’t tell me how to miss my baby.”
Frances Roberts remembered the night her son called to tell her his brother Maurice had been shot.
“I remember saying, ‘Did you call the squad? Have police been called? Did they come and take him to the hospital? ’And my son cut me short and said, ‘Mom, Reecie's dead,’” Roberts said. “You can't imagine the chill that came over me."
Frances said that she raced to the Cordell Avenue scene.
“They wouldn’t let me see him, wouldn’t let me near him,” Roberts said. “They wouldn’t tell me anything. All I knew was my son lay dead under that white sheet.”
The sight continues to haunt her.
“I still most days wake up seeing that white sheet on the ground,” Roberts said.
For months, they heard nothing about Maurice Roberts’ killer until Tuesday, when the arrest was made.
“It lifted some pressure off of me. It made me feel like, ‘Okay, that's the first step. Somebody's doing something,’” Frances Roberts said.
Though the arrest brought the family some measure of comfort, they said that they were nowhere near closure.
“I’ve lost something I’ll never get back,” Frances Roberts said.
The family said that Roberts was caught in an argument between a friend and the shooter, something he had nothing to do with. His friend was shot multiple times, but survived.
Quincey Harris Junior was being held in the Franklin County Jail, on $750,000 dollars bond.
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