GORHAM (NEWS CENTER Maine) - For nearly two decades, the murder of a young man in a crowded parking lot in Portland has gone unsolved.
Wednesday marks the 20th anniversary of Robert Joyal's death. The 18-year-old was fatally stabbed during a fight. Now Joyal’s family is trying to revive the cold case, in hopes that a witness will finally come forward.
Not a day goes by that Faith Joyal doesn’t think about her son Robert.
“We will always miss Robert. I had him when I was 20; I was just a kid myself,” she said.
Nearly 20 years after his death, the questions continue to eat at her.
“Why did this happen? Why was he targeted, what was the issue, and who,” she asks?
Joyal was stabbed in the Denny’s parking lot in Portland on April 4, 1998. When police arrived on the scene, there were about 50 people screaming and fighting. Investigators determined there was gang involvement. Potential witnesses clammed up, even Joyal’s friends and acquaintances from Gorham, where he was a senior in high school.
“This was the first time in Gorham that they had been confronted with gangs and gang mentality. People just didn’t know what to do with it, so they told their children, even though they had been there, they had to stay away from it,” said Faith Joyal.
Now that those teenagers are grown, she hopes they will have a change of heart and say something.
“Now they’ve grown up. We see pictures of them on Facebook; they have children, they are business owners, some of them have gotten out of the gang lifestyle and moved on. If you knew that kind of information, it has to weigh on you I would think, so I’m hoping someone would want to come forward,” she said.
At age 15, Seiha Srey was charged with Joyal’s murder and spent 18 months behind bars. But he was released after investigators felt there wasn’t enough evidence for a conviction. Several years later, Srey was shot and killed in a dispute over drug money.
“We had always hoped we would get the answers and with Seiha gone, It’s made it much more difficult,” Joyal said.
Difficult, but not impossible. That’s why she’s starting a new push, in honor of her son. She wants to find answers whether Srey or someone else was responsible.
“Do you feel you owe him to find the answers," she was asked.
"Without a doubt, I feel apologetic to him almost daily, that I haven’t done more,” she said.
Faith Joyal says she is considering hiring a private investigator again to look into her son's case. The last time she hired one, he ran into the same roadblocks as police. People refused to come forward. The family is also using social media. Robert's brother has set up a Facebook group page titled "Robert Joyal.... what happened?"