“I just think of how much I miss him. How much I need him,” Gloria Woodley Alexander said today. “It’s just a disaster. This week has been hard. I’ve been screaming, crying, calling his name.”

Alexander wants justice. “They didn’t only take my son. They took my best friend.”

If Woodley were alive today, his mother said, “He would be working, helping his family, loving all the kids. He would have made our lives really happy.”

Since his death there have been nephews born, nieces born. “He didn’t see his sister graduate from high school.”

He also missed the death of his god sister, Jessica Hadden, who was found dead hanging from playground equipment at Manning Elementary School in October of 2007. “Her mother and father took James in like a son. One family didn’t lose a son then, two did.”

Alexander keeps Peanut alive through stories told to family members. “I tell them he loved basketball with a passion. I always tell them their uncle loved basketball. He was a role model.”

While people invite Alexander to watch their children play, she says she just can’t do it.

She wants his killer or killers to know what they took from her 12 years ago today. “My health is going down. They took a big part of my life when they took his life.”

If Alexander knew for sure who killed her son she said she would ask them, “The main thing I would ask is why they don’t feel my pain, heal my pain. To me it’s like it just happened.”

The background

The governor’s office last year signed a proclamation offering a reward of up to $5,000 for information leading to an arrest in the case.

There are witnesses to Woodley’s murder, police have said, and one of the keys to solving it could be a car with Virginia license plates. Some of the numbers and letters from the tag possibly read EW??-35??.

From that car exited a man carrying what witnesses described as possibly an AK-47, an assault weapon used it to kill Woodley, who was 19 when he was murdered.

A description of a car used in a robbery before Woodley’s murder and one seen on 9th and Carolina streets four weeks before the fatal shooting could also be important.

A man running heard “We should do him now,”  uttered from the vehicle, an older model Plymouth or Dodge, blue, with rust spots on the front, sounding like it had a hole in the muffler.

It was seen twice on March 24, once when two of the men in it robbed one of Woodley’s friends at gunpoint and then when Woodley was murdered.

Around 8:30 p.m. Woodley and a friend agreed to meet each other at Madison Street, where Woodley lived.

The friend left to look for his girlfriend and walked to Madison Street to find she wasn’t home. The friend began walking south on Madison and made it to the 200 block when he noticed the vehicle drive slowly past him.

As Woodley’s friend continued to walk, the car made a U-turn at Third Street and drove to where the friend was walking.

Two people, both described as black males, got out of the vehicle, one from the right front passenger side and the other from the right rear passenger side, the one carrying a weapon.

The man with the gun did all the talking, pointing the weapon at him, ordering him to surrender his belongings. The friend complied and the other man searched his pockets and socks for money, jewelry and drugs, which no drugs were found.

The friend remained calm never saying anything to the men who were robbing him. When the men left, the gun remained trained on Woodley’s friend.

The men were described the following way: One man wearing a red shirt and black coat, a black stocking cap and another man wearing a cammo jacket and pants and some type of mask over his face.

As his friend was robbed, Woodley and two other friends were walking in the 200 block of Monroe Street.

The car was north on Madison Street and made a left turn onto Second Street, then turned onto Monroe. The car stopped, one man got out and ordered Woodley and his friends to lay on the ground.

One of the friends hollered to run. The three men fled south and a shot was heard. Woodley fell to the ground at 202 Monroe Street. As Woodley lay fatally wounded his friends heard the car speed off.

Investigation continues

The police department continues to get leads in the case, Captain Andy Jackson told rrspin.com today. “We’re still searching for people owning an older car that could possibly be in the Virginia or Delaware area. We’re following up on all leads.”

Investigators believe someone knows who the people are. “It’s just a matter of someone coming forward.”

Jackson said police plan to apply more modern forensic techniques to the case. “We’ve actually looked into the possibility of getting DNA off the bullet. We’re looking at a way to try to apply new forensics. We’re trying to cover all avenues.”

Anyone with information is encouraged to call the police department at 252-533-2810 or Halifax County Crimestoppers at 252-583-4444.