ATLANTA — Ten years ago, a Georgia Tech graduate was walking to a bar in East Atlanta Village with friends when someone tried to rob them.
They ended up robbing and killing 33-year-old Patrick Cotrona.
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Channel 2 Action News first covered the crime hours after it happened on Memorial Day weekend in 2013, when it sent shockwaves through the East Atlanta community.
Channel 2′s Tyisha Fernandes was in northeast Atlanta on May Ave., where family members revealed how much the crime is still devastating his family a decade later.
His sister, Kate Cotrona-Krumm, had to move away because the memories of what happened to her brother in this neighborhood were too much.
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Cotrona’s family believes that whoever committed the murder continued to commit crimes, and they want that person to pay for what they did.
“He really loved living in the village,” Cotrona-Krumm said. “He had friends there. He really felt like part of the community.
Cotrona-Krumm said her brother was a Georgia Tech grad who had graduated Summa cum laud in computer science.
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“It was really hard to believe it at first,” Cotrona-Krumm said. “I couldn’t register it in my brain because even though he was 33, he was still kind of a kid to me.”
Cotrona-Krumm said her brother had a lot of hobbies, one of which was hanging out at restaurants and bars of May Avenue.
On the night of May 25, Cotrona was walking with friends along a road where the street lights were out when he was robbed at gunpoint, then shot to death.
“That was a big element of the situation at the time,” Cotrona-Krumm said. “There were arguments between the city and Georgia Power as to who was responsible for keeping those lights on.”
The community came together to try to find his killers. Police offered a $25,00 reward, but no one was ever arrested.
The family and police believe that at least one person knows who killed Patrick.
“Maybe they were scared to step forward at that time,” Cotrona-Krumm said. “I’m sure if you know somebody who has taken someone else’s life, you don’t want to say anything. You’re scared for yourself or your family. And I understand that, but we’re hoping that enough time has gone by that people might feel comfortable coming forward and speaking up.”
Fernandes talked to Atlanta police to see if they have any new information about the case. They said they don’t, so the family is relying on witnesses who haven’t come forward yet.
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