Salvation Army chaplains attend a balloon release for a young homicide victim in Milwaukee. (Photo provided by Salvation Army)

Losing a loved one to violence is heartbreaking.

Not receiving justice for their murder deepens that pain.

Many families in Milwaukee, including mine, understand this feeling.

From 2020 to 2024, more than 900 murders occurred in Milwaukee, several hundred of which remain unsolved.

I’m hoping to tell a story about how Milwaukee families are impacted when their loved ones’ murder goes unsolved.

If you’d like to share your family’s story with me, please reach out.

My sincere condolences on your loss, and my hope is that you receive justice one day.

Inside the NNS Newsroom: Edgar Mendez starts new role as gun violence solutions reporter

Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.

Republish this article

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Scroll down to copy and paste the code of our article into your CMS. The codes for images, graphics and other embeddable elements may not transfer exactly as they appear on our site.

*** Also, the code below will NOT copy the featured image on the page. You are welcome to download the main image as a separate element for publication with this story. ***

You are welcome to republish our articles for free using the following ground rules.

Credit should be given, in this format: “By Ron Smith, Wisconsin Watch”
Editing material is prohibited, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and in-house style (for example, using “Milwaukee, Wis.” instead of “Milwaukee” or changing “yesterday” to “last week”)
Other than minor cosmetic and font changes, you may not change the structural appearance or visual format of a story.
If published online, you must include the links and link to milwaukeenns.org
If you share the story on social media, please mention @milwaukeenns (Facebook, Instagram and Bluesky), and ensure that the original featured image associated with the story is visible on the social media post.
Don’t sell the story or any part of it — it may not be marketed as a product.
Don’t extract, store or resell Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service content as a database.
Don’t sell ads against the story. But you can publish it with pre-sold ads.
Your website must include a prominent way to contact you.
Additional elements that are packaged with our story must be labeled.
Users can republish our photos, illustrations, graphics and multimedia elements ONLY with stories with which they originally appeared. You may not separate multimedia elements for standalone use.
If we send you a request to change or remove Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service content from your site, you must agree to do so immediately.

For questions regarding republishing rules please contact Jeff Bauer, digital editor and producer, at jbauer@wisconsinwatch.org.

Is your loved one’s murder still unsolved?

by Edgar Mendez, Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
March 11, 2025

<h1>Is your loved one’s murder still unsolved?</h1>
<p class="byline">by Edgar Mendez, Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service <br />March 11, 2025</p>
<br />
<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img src="https://milwaukeenns.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/51263903851_b2d4a4769a_b.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-114427" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Salvation Army chaplains attend a balloon release for a young homicide victim in Milwaukee. (Photo provided by Salvation Army) </figcaption></figure>
<p>Losing a loved one to violence is heartbreaking.</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image alignleft size-thumbnail"><img src="https://milwaukeenns.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/edgar-150x150.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-114428" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Edgar Mendez</figcaption></figure>
<p>Not receiving justice for their murder deepens that pain.</p>
<p>Many families in Milwaukee, including mine, understand this feeling.</p>
<p>From 2020 to 2024, more than 900 murders occurred in Milwaukee, several hundred of which remain unsolved.</p>
<p>I’m hoping to tell a story about how Milwaukee families are impacted when their loved ones’ murder goes unsolved.</p>
<p>If you’d like to share your family’s story with me, <a href="mailto:edgarmendez@milwaukeenns.org">please reach out</a>.</p>
<p>My sincere condolences on your loss, and my hope is that you receive justice one day.</p>
<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity" />
<h2 class="wp-block-heading has-text-align-center"><strong>In case you missed it</strong></h2>
<h2 class="wp-block-heading has-background" style="background-color:#f7f7f7"><a href="https://milwaukeenns.org/2024/08/30/inside-the-nns-newsroom-edgar-mendez-starts-new-role-as-gun-violence-solutions-reporter/">Inside the NNS Newsroom: Edgar Mendez starts new role as gun violence solutions reporter</a></h2></p>
<p>This &lt;a target=&quot;_blank&quot; href=&quot;https://milwaukeenns.org/2025/03/11/is-your-loved-ones-murder-still-unsolved/&quot;&gt;article&lt;/a&gt; first appeared on &lt;a target=&quot;_blank&quot; href=&quot;https://milwaukeenns.org&quot;&gt;Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service&lt;/a&gt; and is republished here under a &lt;a target=&quot;_blank&quot; href=&quot;https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/&quot;&gt;Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;img src=&quot;https://i0.wp.com/milwaukeenns.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/cropped-NNS-Favicon.png?resize=150%2C150&amp;amp;ssl=1&quot; style=&quot;width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;&quot;&gt;</p>
&lt;img id=&quot;republication-tracker-tool-source&quot; src=&quot;https://milwaukeenns.org/?republication-pixel=true&amp;post=114322&amp;amp;ga4=G-HGM4XK3QCM&quot; style=&quot;width:1px;height:1px;&quot;&gt;&lt;script&gt; PARSELY = { autotrack: false, onload: function() { PARSELY.beacon.trackPageView({ url: &quot;https://milwaukeenns.org/2025/03/11/is-your-loved-ones-murder-still-unsolved/&quot;, urlref: window.location.href }); } } &lt;/script&gt; &lt;script id=&quot;parsely-cfg&quot; src=&quot;//cdn.parsely.com/keys/milwaukeenns.org/p.js&quot;&gt;&lt;/script&gt;

Is your loved one’s murder still unsolved?

In case you missed it

Inside the NNS Newsroom: Edgar Mendez starts new role as gun violence solutions reporter

Related

Edgar MendezManaging editor

Contact

Hey neighbor, let's stay in touch!

In case you missed it

Inside the NNS Newsroom: Edgar Mendez starts new role as gun violence solutions reporter

Related

Edgar MendezManaging editor