On Monday, Christian Harper placed a bouquet of flowers on the sand where more a year ago his brother's lifeless body was discovered his brother Jay's lifeless body.
Harper's family handed out flyers in the Deerrfield Beach neighborhood where the 47-year-old father of three from Connecticut was last seen alive.
"We're not going to forget this we're not going to let this go. We want to know what happened to my husband," said widow Karen Harper.
She has hung on to the hope that answers to the mystery of her husband's death didn't wash up on the surf where he was found.
"We're coming down here to keep his face in the public, something happened to him. We don't know what happened to him. We want to find out," she said.
Business had brought him to South Florida.
"He was the kindest, most caring, and he had a great sense of humor," his mother Diane Harper said.
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In October 2012, Harper booked a room at the Embassy Suites to attend a work conference. After having some drinks at the hotel bar, he was seen speaking to a woman. A deputy noticed that woman, intoxicated on a bench by the beach.
"She tells him my friend went for a walk on the beach. There's a pair of men's shoes next to her. He looks he doesn't see anyone out there," Det. Frank Ilaraza said.
The woman has been ruled out as a suspect, but detectives are looking at the few tips they have, including the fact that someone stole that woman's purse.
"We find out later on that one of her credit cards was used at a tri-rail station on Hillsborough and it was declined. But we don't know if they're related or not because as I said she was highly intoxicated, so someone could have just picked up her purse and taken it away," IIaraza said.
While Harper's official cause of death is not being released, this case is being investigated as a homicide, something his family can't even begin to understand.
"We need peace for our family. All of our lives have changed forever," the victim's mother said.
Harper’s family is offering a $5,000 reward for information leading to an arrest. Crime Stoppers of Broward County is offering up to $3,000.
For more information you can visit www.sheriff.org and search “Jay Harper.”
