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No arrests after Cocoa woman shot to death, mother hospitalized

COCOA, Fla. — Rachel Bradford's sister Lydia was shot to death inside her Cocoa apartment as she prepared for her daughter's seventh birthday back on Jan. 21.

Bradford's mother was critically injured in the same attack and remains hospitalized.

Nearly six months later, no one's answered for the crime.

"Every day I still have to grasp myself and say she's not here anymore, but you have to go on," Bradford said.

"And I have to explain to my kids that 'your aunt Lydia isn't here anymore because some coward took her life.' I don't even know why," Bradford said.

Bradford moved from New York to be closer to her surviving family members. She's convinced someone knows more than they're telling -- "This murderer could be walking past me every day and I don't know it because no one is saying anything, no one is coming forward."

Police did find a weapon near the crime scene off Clearlake Road. Police said they collected quite a bit of forensic evidence and are still awaiting the results of lab testing.

"We just need a little bit of information and to get lucky with that evidence, and we'll arrest our suspect," Officer Barbara Matthews with Cocoa Police Department said.

"Just tell. Just tell it. Free yourself. Because by you holding on to it, nothing good is going to come out of it," Bradford said.

Cocoa police will take an anonymous tip through Crimeline at 1-800-423-TIPS.