Relatives are begging for answers two years to the day 25-year-old Icen Gumbs, Jr. was shot and killed in a Southeast Fresno apartment.
The Gumbs family is hoping their celebration of Icen's life will push someone to step forward and help bring a murderer to justice.
A row of pictures serve as glimpses into a short-lived life. Icen Gumbs, Sr. set up the memorial Saturday to remember his oldest son.
"We believe that Icen is in heaven with God. So we're comforted with that. And we would rather he be here in the flesh with us, my son who I love so dearly," Gumbs said.
Icen Gumbs, Jr. was gunned down inside an apartment. Fresno police also found the body of a man named James Brown inside with Icen.
The two died just three days before Christmas two years ago. At the time, police were still uncertain if the killings were gang or tagging crew-related.
The family says for Icen it was just the wrong place at the wrong time.
His father, a soldier, and his brother, an airman, both came to Fresno from out of town to be here with their family and to ask for Icen's killer to be brought to justice.
"I had no worries with my brother being here. That's my big brother. He protected me, my older sister, my mother. That whole shield of protection is gone with him being gone," the victim's brother, Aji Gumbs, said.
"I still feel the need to protect Icen, even in his death. So that's the motivation for this, is to bring this person to justice. They must come to justice, they must answer for it," Icen, Sr. said.
The family lit lanterns and set them off with a prayer to remember Icen, a young father, with a budding carpentry business.
The family says they know Icen wasn't perfect but he didn't deserve to be killed.
Icen, Jr. left behind four young kids.
Anyone with information about his death is urged to call the Fresno Police Department.
