LEWISBURG, Tenn. (WKRN) – Sept. 1, 2023 marks two years after JJ Contreras was brutally murdered while lying in bed with his children, and his family is still without answers.

“I thought this would be a really easy case to solve, but here we still are,” JJ’s mom Rachel Brown explained, saying it only gets harder as time passes.

It’s another year, and new flowers were placed outside Contreras’ grave.

“We are on borrowed time with our children. They are God’s children; He just lets us borrow them,” Brown said.

Those are words from Scripture Brown struggles to remind herself of, as her son was shot while lying in bed with his fiancé and two children by his side.

“They were once three years old and 11 months; now they are going to be 6 and 3, but they remember their dad everyday,” she said as she teared up. 

New memories are now made at the cemetery where Josiah and Zeke visit their father.

“It’s terrible that this has happened to my family,” Brown said while shaking her head. 

The family is still pleading for answers with little new information.

“Somebody has to say something; somebody knows something of this situation,” she stated firmly.

The investigation shows three masked suspects broke in the door of the family’s West End Avenue home in Lewisburg, demanding money while they were sleeping. Within seconds, Contreras was shot near his heart. The circumstances have left his family shattered. 

“The anger gets worse for me,” Brown cried.

A renewed sense of hope, however, is being felt as Lewisburg police told Contreras’ family they are following a new lead in the case.

“We miss him everyday. There’s not a day that doesn’t go by that we don’t miss JJ and justice will be served. I just hope to God that I am here to see it,” Brown said.

Investigators on the case assure they work on the investigation regularly, saying it remains active and ongoing and that they do have surveillance footage showing four people of interest.

Officials with the District Attorney General’s Office reiterated similar details, asking if anyone has any information in the case to contact their office or police at 931-359-3800.

Contreras’ family is now offering a $10,000 reward for information that leads to an arrest and conviction.