SAN ANTONIO – As the sun set at Hobby Middle School Sunday night, the light from candles shone in the parking lot where friends and family gathered to remember Gilbert Aaron Rocha.
"He went to school here. He played football here. He worked down the street here. He grew up here," said his mother, Lori Rocha. "And he got murdered down the street here."
Investigators said Rocha, who was known as Aaron to his loved ones, was killed the morning of Nov. 26 in some type of road rage incident on Huebner Road near NW Military Drive after someone in another vehicle shot at the SUV in which Rocha was a backseat passenger.
His killer has not been caught.
Friends and family held candles to represent their grief, courage, determination, memories and love in the face of their loss. As they shared stories of the kind, music-loving 25-year-old man they knew, it was clear his memory lived on.
Read more: Family has message to gunman: ‘Your day will come'
Nowhere was that more apparent than in his longtime friend Matthew Saunders, who, along with his wife Cristina, decided to name their next child after Rocha.
"He did a lot of stuff for me throughout the years and stuff," Saunders said. "I mean, he was one of my groomsmen at my wedding. He was real close to me and stuff."
Signs placed around the vigil area showed not just love, but a desire for closure. A banner on the fence read "Justice for Aaron" as did roadside, letters stuck in the grass.
"It's not right what they did to him," Lori Rocha told the gathered crowd.
Rocha said the vigil wasn't just about finding comfort and honoring her son's memory. It was also about awareness.
Related: SAPD seeks help in solving fatal road rage case
She wants the word out that "justice will be served" to whomever is responsible in her son's death. Rocha had a message for them too.
"When they find what hole you're in, they're going to pull you out of it and you're going to be punished," she said.
Crime Stoppers has previously offered up to $5,000 for information leading to an arrest in Rocha's death. Anyone with information is asked to call 210-224-7867.
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