Parents plead for justice one year after son’s slaying

49, lives in Beltzhoover and still sometimes thinks he sees his son on the street.

“I do a triple-take,” he said. “And then you see it’s not him, and you’re let down and the rug is pulled out from under you.”

Police haven’t caught Terence’s killer. And without that closure, his parents are still struggling to come to terms with his death inside Red’s Ringside bar in the 300 block of East Warrington Avenue.

“I don’t feel as though I can fully embrace what has happened,” Mr. Jackson said. “No one is being held responsible.”

Despite surveillance video of the shooting, police haven’t been able to identify the man in the blue sweatshirt with a Reebok logo, a black male with a large build. Investigators also haven’t determined a motive for the killing, police spokeswoman Emily Schaffer said. Police released the surveillance video this week, a year after the shooting, hoping someone can identify the suspect.

The motive puzzles Ms. Anderson, too.

“Usually when something like this happens, you can think back and say, ‘Oh, well he had a beef with this person or this person,’ but with this, there is nothing,” she said.

Her son loved Pittsburgh, she said. When Terence was 9, she moved with him to Atlanta, trying to get away from the violence she saw building in Pittsburgh.

But Terence never considered Atlanta home. When he was 17, he returned to Pittsburgh and to his father. He wasn’t working when he died but was training to become an HVAC technician, Mr. Jackson said.

Terence was arrested a handful of times between 2010 and 2012, court records show, for minor drug offenses and traffic violations. In 2010, he was charged with possession with the intent to deliver and eventually pleaded guilty to a lesser charge in that case.

Mr. Jackson said his son was working to distance himself from his brushes with the law. When he died, it had been four years since his last arrest.

“He was much more than a summary on a piece of paper,” Mr. Jackson said.

His son was outgoing, funny, respectful and quick to give advice or help out other people, Mr. Jackson said.

A year after he died, Ms. Anderson and Mr. Jackson are hoping that someone will tell investigators what they know. They believe the killer can still be caught.

“Somebody knows who did it,” Mr. Jackson said. “It’s frustrating. It’s frustrating, but I do have hope it will come out.”