The frustration Kyra Cordova’s mother feels when speaking about her daughter’s homicide case is almost palpable.
“I don’t know how many more people in that neighborhood need to get killed before someone speaks up,” Dawn Maher said, referring to the residents of the Frankford neighborhood where her daughter was gunned down three years ago. “Somebody knows something. Are they going to continue to let people run around hurting people?”
Cordova, 28, was shot in the head in the early morning hours of Sept. 3, 2012. Her body was found later that day, Labor Day, in a wooded area off the 1100 block of Adams Avenue.
Two months later, police said they had identified a person of interest, but that individual has never been publicly identified.
“They told me they have a person of interest but that everyone they talk to says they don’t know anything,” Maher said. “Apparently these other people are afraid of this person.”
Maher said she’s tried to keep the case alive in the public, though getting mainstream media exposure has been challenging. She noted the $25,000 reward is still active.
Initial information about Cordova’s murder from the police department misgendered her, but Nellie Fitzpatrick, director of the city’s Office of LGBT Affairs, noted that much has changed in three years.
“We are in a much different place now than we were three years ago,” she said. “We’ve had some powerful teaching moments, and that’s how we change the culture of an institution.”
That three years have passed is also becoming more evident to Maher: A school now occupies the site where her daughter was killed, and where she used to visit and leave flowers.
Maher has become a volunteer for the Montgomery County Victims Services and other organizations, sharing Cordova’s story with other families of victims.
Through that work, she said she’s come across several people who knew Cordova, which is a comfort.
“I was speaking at an event recently, a memorial for people murdered in Montgomery County, where I live. Afterwards, a woman came up and said, ‘My son knew your daughter.’ And then at another event not long ago, a transgender woman came up to me and was telling me about how her parents had thrown her out, and while we were talking and I was talking about Kyra, it turns out the guy she was with knew her too. That’s always neat, and nice.”
Fitzpatrick urged anyone with information about the case to come forward.
“If anyone knows or hears something, please reach out,” Fitzpatrick said. “You can call the police, you can call my office and I can put you in touch with [LGBT Liaison] Deputy Commissioner Bethel directly. Sometimes with cold cases, they can be revisited and the person can be brought to justice when people finally speak up. And people shouldn’t feel scared if they’ve been sitting on information; that is something that can be worked around.”
Anonymous tips can be made by calling 215-686-8477 or 215-686-3334/3335. Fitzpatrick can be reached at 215-686-0330.