By admin 
PHOENIX — Saturday marks five years since Destiny McClain was shot and killed while ordering at a food truck in Phoenix. Her case has never been solved. McClain’s mother says she is still searching for answers, while turning grief into a mission to help others.
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“I was really in a dark space for the last five years. I wasn’t showing what I was really going through behind closed doors,” Brenda Gilliam, McClain’s mother, said
Five years after losing her 23-year-old daughter, Gilliam says she is finally beginning to heal.
Destiny McClain was shot in the early morning of July 18th, 2021, while ordering at a food truck near 17thStreet and McDowell. Phoenix Police released surveillance video of a vehicle of interest, but the case remains unsolved.
“I don’t feel like we made a lot of headway, but I’m still not giving up hope,” Gilliam said.
Family, friends, and strangers across the Valley honored McClain Saturday, lighting candles and posting her photo online during a virtual vigil.
“Everything I do represents Destiny,” Gilliam said.
Through her nonprofit, Gilliam now speaks to young people about the consequences of gun violence and helps families of other victims.
“Anybody that’s going through this, I just know it’s extremely difficult to deal with on a day-by-day basis,” Gilliam said.
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She is even hoping to spark change at the Capitol next session, pushing for Arizona to require front license plates.
“It can help in hit-and-runs. It can help with kidnappings,” she said.
But she says none of that fills the void her family lives with every day.
“We have that hole in, and along with that hole, we have questions,” Gilliam said, “To know that there are people out there that know this, and know what happened.. I just can’t even fathom having that type of knowledge, and just literally watching a family being tortured.”
There is still a $2,000 Silent Witness reward for information leading to an arrest.
For Gilliam, this anniversary is a reminder that her family’s loss didn’t end five years ago.
“I’m not the only one suffering. I watch my daughters struggle daily,” Gilliam said. “I didn’t just lose Destiny; I lost all of my children that day. Because I’ll never have the same version of them that I had the day before. And they lost me. We’ll never be the same. And a piece of us is gone.”
Anyone with information about the case can contact Silent Witness and submit tips anonymously.
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