First Posted: 3/12/2015
LIMA — The murder of the man she has a daughter with may have been 13 years ago but for Latasha Harvey, it seems like yesterday.
She remembers the day Jon Bryant was shot to death inside his home on Central Avenue during a robbery in January 2002.
On Thursday, Harvey stood with 6th Ward Councilman Derry Glenn, two representatives of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and Sheila Banks, whose nephew was murdered more than 20 years ago.
They announced an anonymous donor has put up $1,000 for anyone who comes forward with information that leads to an arrest and conviction of any unsolved homicide in Lima — not just Bryant’s or Banks’ nephew, Albert Pickering Jr. in the early 1990s.
The money is good for the next month through April 15. The donor and Glenn set a deadline to stress urgency. They hope money entices someone to come forward in the next month. The reward also helps remind people of unsolved murders and, more importantly, the surviving family members, Glenn said.
“We have a lot of unsolved murders. If we get one out of that bunch, we’re good to go,” Glenn said.
Glenn also said he would call the Ohio Attorney General’s Office to ask for help from that agency’s cold case squad to join the effort in Lima.
Harvey said her family will not stop until justice is served. She stood by the daughter she had with Bryant, Jonisha Bryant, now 13, and who never met her father.
“As long as she’s been on this earth, he’s been gone,” Harvey said.
Glenn and others believe, in most of the cases, someone out there knows who killed each victim but hasn’t come forward for whatever reason. Glenn urges people to remember the family members of the victims and come forward, if for no other reason than to give the family peace.
Banks said she’s never forgotten her nephew’s killing and the way it changed her sister’s life forever.
