HOUSTON — A family is desperate for someone to come forward and help them find the person who killed their son.
Eddie Lanier, III, known as Tre by his family and friends, was shot and killed while sitting in his parked car in southwest Houston Sunday night.
Houston Police have not made any arrests and have not said if they have identified a suspect.
Tre's dad, Eddie Lanier, Jr., knew something was wrong when his son didn’t show up to watch the Cowboys game with him on Sunday like he always does.
He called his son’s phone, again and again, past 2 a.m., but Tre never answered.
What he learned days later was his worst nightmare.
One week ago, they were a family of four.
“We had to go and make final arrangements for my son today," Tre's mother, Shelia Lanier said.
Now, they are three.
“We haven’t really decided on the songs yet," Eddie Lanier, Jr. said.
"Just 'Take Me to the King', probably one of them," Shelia Lanier said. "It's one of his favorite songs.”
They spent Thursday doing something nobody ever taught them to do; bury their son.
"If you told me that this was the way my brother's life was going to end, I never would have never believed you," Tre's sister, Tara McFarlin said. "I would have never believed you.”
At about 6-feet-eight-inches tall, 40-year-old Tre Lanier stood out.
"Everybody said gentle giant," his mother said.
But she says he also stood out in ways you can’t see from the outside.
"Just an encourager and a helper is all I can tell you about my son," Shelia Lanier said.
"He was a straight 'A' student strong at math and science," McFarlin said.
"He took that after me," his father replied.
"He played basketball all the way through college," his sister said.
"This does not make sense," Tre's mother said. "We don’t understand. This does not make sense."
Tre's family said he left a woman’s apartment where he’d stayed the night in southwest Houston on Sunday morning.
That afternoon, he was supposed to be watching the football game with his dad.
But he never called and he never showed up.
“At this time there are no witnesses and no evidence indicating a motive or what happened," the HPD homicide lieutenant said at the crime scene on Sunday.
About a mile from the apartment Tre had left that morning is the location where his parents say he was gunned down while he was sitting in his parked Toyota Camry that evening.
The gunman shot through his rolled-up window.
"There are no words because I just, I just, I just don’t have any," Shelia Lanier said. "I don’t."
There is no way to describe the pain of a mother who has lost her son.
"Why would anybody want to do something like this to my child?" Shelia Lanier asked. "I don’t understand it. Because he never ever hurt a flea, couldn’t kill a fly, he wouldn’t kill anything."
Without an arrest or a suspect, Eddie Lanier, Jr., has not been able to sleep since Sunday.
"And nobody sees nothing, you know?" he said.
The Laniers are asking for help. They're asking for someone to come forward.
"He was my baby," Shelia Lanier said. "And the Lord blessed me with two children, and I’m thankful for the one, but I still need to find out what happened to him what happened to my son.
It's incomprehensible to the parents who tried to do everything right.
"You know from the time my baby came home from the hospital I put him in the car seat," Shelia Lanier said. "He was always protected. We did everything we thought we needed to do to keep him safe.
KHOU 11 has reached out to the Houston Police Department for an update on the case. We have yet to hear back.
If you have any information on this case, call the Houston Police Department or Crime Stoppers at 713-222-TIPS (8477).