In this episode of "May's Message," Escambia County District 3 Commissioner Lumon May catches up with some local mothers who have had their families torn apart by violence.

May visits with women who are working to keep the pain that they felt from befalling other families, and to plead with those who know something about these crimes to come forward and share what they know.

May speaks with Lisa Wiggins of PAIN -- Parents Against Injustice and Negligence -- whose sister was killed in 1994 by her husband, who then killed himself.

“All the signs were there that the relationship was toxic,” Wiggins says, but her  sister didn’t heed them. “He was arrested and released just in time to put bullets in her head, back and shoulder.”

Wiggins, and her mother, Helen Crawford, say that even though time has past, the pain their family feels remains fresh. And that pain is at the root of their plea to people who know about unsolved crimes to come forward and tell what they know, even anonymously.

“There are mothers...who are about to lose their minds because someone in Pensacola knows who killed their son and they won’t confess.”

Wiggins urges people to become involved in keeping their neighborhoods safe and not to wait until tragedy strikes them to do so.

“It’s all of our fight,” she says. “There is enough work out here for all of us.”

May also interviews three mothers who are part of Montclair on a Mission. Their work with that group includes volunteering in schools to help young people see that there is more to life than the cycle of violence that touched their lives.

“Mama” Rosa Dukes invokes the spirit of her son, Broderick Johnson, who was killed on Diego Circle in May of 2012, in urging people to break the wall of silence that surrounds his death and too many others.

“The silence has to stop,” Dukes says.

“Let the little ones see that they don’t have to eat that type of food,” Dukes says. “...There’s a better way...They can eat the food of learning to love one another, share with one another, get along with one another.”

Though the young man who shot Cindy Martin’s son, Matthew Cox, in July 2012 has been convicted and faces life in prison, she says her pain remains.

“I didn’t feel a whole lot better. I do have closure, but that’s still somebody’s child,” she says of the 19-year-old convicted in her son’s killing.

Sharon Gardener holds out hope that her son, Michael Lawson, will return to his family, which includes two young daughters, ages 4 and 2. He has been missing since January of 2013, and investigators have told her little that is new about his case.

“I go day by day with the Lord keeping me strong,” she says.

She urges anyone with information about his whereabouts to call CrimeStoppers.

The episode closes with Lavon Brown, mother of Labar Brown, who was killed in October of 2012, recalling what it was like to arrive at the scene of her son’s death to see a car covered by a sheet and crime scene tape barring her from the car.

She has a piece of that tape with her still.

“The feeling I had, I want no parent to have,” she says.

Brown says she had the strength to ask the State Attorney’s Office what she could do to help in the case. Not everyone will be able to knock on doors at the scene, as she did, she says, looking for someone who knew something about what happened.

“Get someone designated to handle your case,” she says.

Watch the full video here.

If you have information about these or other unsolved cases, call CrimeStoppers at (850) 433-STOP or toll-free at (877) 433-TIPS. You can be anonymous.

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