Her husband’s cold case was solved more than a decade after his murder. Now she’s started a nonprofit to help others.
Kevin Drinks' cold case solved after more than 10 years offered hope to countless others. But now his wife, Keyna, wants to do more.
Keyna Drinks was doing whatever she could in 2011 to draw attention to her husband’s murder.
She called on her local state representative, who helped organize a vigil and news conference.
She phoned the police constantly.
In the months-turned-years with no answers, she never let up. She papered the North Philadelphia neighborhood where her husband was gunned down with flyers seeking information, and passed out buttons and T-shirts calling for “Justice 4 Kevin Drinks.”
When police quickly arrested a suspect in the shooting death of Officer Moses Walker Jr., killed eight months after her husband, Drinks went public with her frustration. She was glad the officer’s killer was caught, but she reminded anyone who would listen that her husband’s case still languished and that every murder victim in the city deserved justice.
Her decade-long odyssey ended in 2022, when the men responsible for killing her husband were sentenced. It was a tragic case of mistaken identity. They shot the wrong guy.
After fighting for years for answers and accountability, Drinks has now started a nonprofit she’s named Still Waiting On Justice Advocates to help guide other families in similar circumstances.
“I’ve been where they are,” she said. “And I know what it feels like to feel alone when you’re trying to get answers and trying to get people to listen.”
There are a lot of organizations in our city to help the growing fellowship of families of murder victims navigate their grief — most started by survivors themselves. They’ve become lifelines for many.
But when Drinks told me she wanted to focus on guiding families through concrete steps to help keep unsolved homicide cases from “turning ice cold,” I was all ears.
I’ve written a lot about the tireless efforts of family members determined not to have the loss of their loved ones overshadowed by the hundreds of homicides in Philadelphia every year. In 2019, one Philly mother who’d traveled her own treacherous path to bring her son’s killers to justice organized a two-day silent protest over unsolved murders in front of police department headquarters. And while it got police brass’ attention for a full hot minute, there still isn’t a week that passes when I’m not hearing from the relatives of a murder victim who are struggling to contact a homicide detective.
For every murder that gets attention, there are countless others that get none, which leaves loved ones in the dark and unsure of who to turn to or what to do next.
A resource like the one Drinks is growing could potentially fill that void, and make survivors feel less alone.
That’s Drinks’ hope, too — but she wanted to be clear when we recently spoke that her fledgling organization is not meant to solve cases and that it aims to focus on homicides that have gone cold after three or more years. (She can be reached through her website — stillwaitingonjusticeadvocates.org — and is seeking volunteers.)
To begin, Drinks will draw on her own experience to encourage and guide others. It will be a partnership, she said, between her, her small team, and families who must take the lead.
Her first piece of advice? Keep in constant contact with police, which she’s aware can be easier suggested than done.
“Keep calling — no matter what,” she said, referring to the well-known communication breakdowns between police and families of murder victims in our city.
Connect with public officials and the press and urge them to share your story. Remind people that the city offers a $20,000 reward for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of homicide suspects. There’s the Citizens Crime Commission and 6abc’s Crime Fighters, which features unsolved murder cases, and the Philadelphia Obituary Project, which tells the stories of Philly’s gun violence victims.
And, look, I’ll also take this moment to remind readers that there’s also me, who has dedicated much of my career to covering Philadelphia’s gun violence, and a lot of other city reporters committed to amplifying the impact of unsolved murders in our city.
“You have to be persistent,” Drinks said. “These cold cases can be warmed up.”
She saw it herself in her husband’s case, where years after the murder, a detective listening to recordings of jailhouse telephone conversations heard something that reignited the investigation.
Already, Drinks has recruited a handful of people to be part of her volunteer team, including Thomas Moore, whose son’s murder in 2020 is unsolved
Moore’s 28-year-old son, Thomas Moore Jr., and a friend were shot multiple times while they stopped at a broken traffic light at Limekiln Pike and Middleton Street, in the West Oak Lane neighborhood. His friend survived.
The shooting makes no sense to the father; both were hardworking young men who stayed out of trouble. But what also doesn’t make sense is the lack of communication from the police. Moore said he stopped hearing from the detective on his son’s case “a long time ago.”
At Drinks’ encouragement, Moore shared his story on Crime Fighters a year after his son’s death. I watched the episode recently and was struck by something Moore said.
“We’re losing this war to silence.”
Moore was referring to eyewitnesses who choose not to come forward, but also to a city where, despite some improvements, justice remains out of reach for far too many families as police investigations go quiet.
It doesn’t have to be that way. It shouldn’t be, and Drinks is determined that the families of murder victims are heard loud and clear.