Mother Still Seeks Justice Five Years After Her Son Was Gunned Down in Montgomery
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (WAKA) — A Montgomery mother is still searching for justice five years after her son was gunned down in broad daylight. Mollie Gardner says the pain of losing her son, Keshon Gardner, remains as raw as the day he died.
“He said, ‘Call my mom,’” Gardner recalled through tears. “I didn’t know it, but she said those were his last words, laying in her lap in the living room. I wish I could have saved my baby, but my phone was off.”
Gardner, 30, was walking with a young woman through the Regency Park neighborhood around 11 a.m. on Sunday, June 28, 2020, when someone in a white Ford Fusion opened fire. Wounded, he ran into a nearby home for help but later died from his injuries.
Gardner wonders why the woman who was with her son wasn’t immediately questioned by police.
“There was a female walking with him, and after my son ran into a house to get help, she came knocking on the front door about 15 or 20 minutes later,” Gardner said. “When I got on the scene, she was down the sidewalk across the street with her hands folded. I’m trying to figure out why they didn’t have her in the police car then for questioning.”
Now, five years later, the case remains unsolved. Gardner said she has received no updates from the Montgomery Police Department in four years.
The weight of the tragedy has taken a toll on her.
“I don’t do anything anymore,” Gardner said. “I’m a homebody. I don’t like talking on the phone unless it’s my mom or kids. I just go to work and come home. When they took my son, it’s like they took a part of me, too.”
On what would have been Keshon’s 35th birthday, May 29, his 3-year-old nephew—who is named after him—wore a shirt in his honor. Gardner, however, couldn’t bring herself to attend the gathering.
The pain is made worse, she said, by the lack of communication from investigators.
“When I went and got my son’s belongings and saw his shoes, I couldn’t do anything but cry,” Gardner said. “All that blood was on my son’s shoes. Y’all didn’t have to kill him. I’m still waiting on my baby to come home, but he never showed up. I miss his laugh. Every time I cooked, he’d be the first one at the door to eat.”
Gardner said that when she arrived at the scene in 2020, she was told her son had already been taken to a hospital, but that wasn’t true.
“He was still in the house,” she said. “The police, the homicide detective, and former Chief Finlay kept telling me he wasn’t there. I was looking at the back of the ambulance because the door was open. Then about five or ten minutes later, the coroner’s van pulled up to the house in Regency Park to take his body.”
Gardner is now pleading for justice—not only for her son, but for other grieving families who have lost children to gun violence in Montgomery.
“I would like to see the police department and the detective division doing their job to find who murdered my son— not just my son. I have friends who lost their kids – their daughter, their son – the same year my son was murdered. Give us the justice that we need. Give me justice for my son. You know they murdered my son in broad daylight. Do the right thing. Give me closure,” she said.
Anyone with information about Keshon Gardner’s case is asked to call Central Alabama CrimeStoppers at 334-215-STOP. Tips can be made anonymously.
