DETROIT – Friends and family members gathered Wednesday to honor a beloved Detroit flower shop owner who was murdered two years ago.
Two years ago, the loved ones of Deantai Box got a call they'd never forget: He had been murdered. The ones who knew him best gathered for a moment of silence Wednesday at 7:20 a.m. -- the exact moment he was shot in 2017.
But after that solemn moment, the group took action, canvassing the neighborhood.
"At 7:20 in the morning, as he was helping a friend at the time, getting his wheelchair, somebody gunned him down in his driveway -- murdered," said Box's cousin, Chontrice Belton-Jordan.
Belton-Jordan said that's when everything changed.
"Life will never be the same without him," Belton-Jordan said. "He was a very important person."
Box had just opened a flower shop in Southfield before he was killed.
"He was good to any(one) and everyone," Belton-Jordan said. "He took care of a lot of people. We have no idea. Why would somebody want to gun him down the way that they did?"
They're determined to find out. Family members and friends posted signs Wednesday, putting them throughout the neighborhood on Ohio Street, where the murder happened.
"Someone around here knows or saw who did this," said Box's aunt, Lawanda Box.
They're keeping his name and face on the mind of the community.
"I think the more we keep it out there, the more people would kind of help us get peace as a family and help him get justice, because he needs justice," Belton-Jordan said.