‘She deserves justice’: Family pleads for answers in 2003 cold case killing at Southside Park

CHARLOTTE — Southside Park is a place where families go to have fun and make happy memories, but for Sakendra Rodgers-Hall, the playground brings painful flashbacks.

“It’s time,” Rodgers-Hall said. “It’s time for her to have justice. She deserves it. Her family deserves it.”

Rodgers-Hall is fighting for justice for her sister, Alkia Rodgers, who was 18 when her body was discovered on the park’s playground.

Officers say she was stabbed to death on May 22, 2003, and her killer has not been identified.

“Everybody is a suspect, basically,” Rodgers-Hall said. “Don’t trust anybody. It’s hard to get answers from anybody.”

Rodgers-Hall said Rodgers was meeting her baby’s father at the park for diapers but never made it home.

That baby, Marqualo, was just one year old.

The 23-year-old now doesn’t remember his mother, Rodgers-Hall said.

Rodgers-Hall said her nephew doesn’t ask much about his mother.

“He doesn’t really ask,” he said. “But we do tell him stories about her. We keep her name alive.”

Channel 9 was there in 2003 as investigators combed the park for evidence.

There weren’t enough leads, so the case went cold.

It would mean a lot for the family to have closure.

“The end of restless nights and just wondering and being out here with that person. It would put a calm to the storm,” Rodgers-Hall said.

Rodgers’ relatives continue to hold candlelight vigils, praying for answers.

One person who will never get closure Alkia Rodger’s mother.

Joe-Ann Rodgers died in 2015 with no answers as to who killed her daughter.

“She really wanted that,” Rodgers-Hall said. “She really wanted justice for her. We all do. But as her parent, that’s critical for her to have.”

Rodgers-Hall said she will always remember her sister as a comedian who could light up a room.

She hopes every day that investigators find the person responsible for the darkness and pain her family has endured.

“I guess it’ll be a start of us really actually healing and getting closure,” she said.

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