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MAGNA — Watching a cluster of white balloons drift out of sight, Tiffany Chambers believes her brother sees the message she is sending into the sky.
"You are my sunshine, I love you," Chambers wrote, releasing the balloon in front of a photo of her smiling brother, Stevan Chambers.
Alongside the photo is a poster asking anyone with information about the slaying to call police.
Chambers met Saturday night at Magna Copper Park with her brother's family and friends, marking a year of questions since the 26-year-old was gunned down on a Magna street on Aug. 17, 2015. A woman, Shelli Marie Brown, 26, was found shot in the park two days later in what police say is a connected but still unsolved case.
While the memories and the balloon release brought momentary peace, Tiffany Chambers said she is still haunted by the question of who killed her brother and Brown.
"I would rather be celebrating his life than trying to get everybody together to make a demonstration that we won't accept anything less than justice," Chambers said.
For more than six months, a person of interest who police believe is linked to the killings has been in the Salt Lake County Jail on unrelated charges. Unified police detective Tim Duran, who greeted Chambers' family with a hug and spoke with them as they wept, said he believes the case could advance in coming weeks.
"There has been some progress made on it," Duran said of the investigation. "Right now we are waiting for forensic evidence to be returned from the state crime lab. … We're hoping that in the next month or so we'll have more answers."
Duran said police still believe the two cases are linked.
Tiffany Chambers expressed appreciation for the Unified police investigators who has been following the case, but her praise was tinged with frustration that prosecutors have yet to file charges in the case.
"I hear what their defense is, it's just different when you're living it," Chambers said.
Chambers described her brother as silly, energetic and a flirt. At 26, engaged and with a baby on the way, his life was "just getting started" when he died.
"He would make a complete fool of himself just to make you smile if he thought you were having a bad day," Chamber recalled. "And growing up into a man, he was very, very handsome and very loving."
"I get sad because I think that, in the end, his life was taken because he had a good heart, because he was kind to the wrong person, or was there for the wrong person," she added.
Steven Chambers' daughter, Ariel, is now 10 months old. She was born two months after the murder.
Leaaetohi Pouha, Ariel's mother, said she sees Chambers' energy and happiness in her daughter.
"I see a lot of him in her," Pouha said, especially as she has heard stories from Stevan Chambers' of what he was like as a child.
Tiffany Chambers agrees. She described a bittersweet moment as the girl called for "da-da" at the sight of a photo of her father.
"I hate that he didn't get to see that," Chambers said. "She would have been his pride and joy."
Tiffany Chambers urged anyone with information that may connect to her brother's death to contact police, no matter how trivial it may seem.
"Think if it was your little brother or your son, what would you want?" she said. "I believe if (investigators) had everything they needed, someone would be charged. It's been the same thing for a year."
