WOODBRIDGE, Va. — This time of year, is anything but festive for the family and friends of Jose Guerrero.
"I don't feel like celebrating instead of mourning and trying to cope with the numbness," said his mother Andrea Salgado.
The young father was brutally murdered last December.
"I don't understand what happened. I question myself every day. Why did this happen? Why?" she said.
On Dec. 21, 2022, he left his Woodbridge home. When he didn't return right away, his girlfriend immediately knew something was wrong.
"We're out here all day, all night," said Sheila Perez through tears on Dec. 27. Perez is his girlfriend and the mother of their daughter, Avery, who was 10-months-old at the time.
She told WUSA9 that Guerrero left their home on Lynn Street in Woodbridge, around 8 p.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 21.
"We had plans to go on a date. We were going to go watch Christmas lights, go ice skating. He said he was gonna be right back," said Perez.
When he still hadn't returned 20 minutes later and after trying to get a hold of him, she called his mother, Andrea Salgado.
For weeks his family desperately searched for him. They organized several search parties, but had no luck finding him.
They did however find his car, and told WUSA9 that investigators told them, that there was a large amount of blood in the car.
On Jan. 19, police found his body in Maryland.
Olvin Daniel Argueta Ramirez, 19, of Woodbridge, and a 17-year-old boy who lives in Woodbridge, were arrested in connection to Guerrero’s death, police said. They were both facing murder charges.
Court documents revealed the two allegedly told police they "intended to rob" Guerrero during a drug transaction in a parking lot in Lost Canyon Court.
Instead, after some sort of argument, they stabbed him over and over until he was unconscious, then took him somewhere else to make sure he was dead, according to court documents. Then, they drove Guerrero's car to Adelphi, Maryland where police say they dumped his body in a wooded area, before bringing the car back to Bel Air Road in Woodbridge.
"What they did was horrible and I wouldn't wish it to anybody," said Salgado.
In March, Guerrero's family told WUSA9 that the Prince William County Commonwealth Attorney's Office told them that the younger suspect had been released, due to a lack of evidence.
"My heart dropped. They're letting murderer walk the streets. I'm in fear and others should be in fear too," said Andrea Salgado.
That was on March 24. WUSA9 called the jail that afternoon, and they confirmed that the young man who has not been publicly identified because he was a minor at the time, was in the process of being released.
"We won't have peace until all of the people involved are behind bars," said Salgado.
She says she misses her son every single day, and will always remember him for his smile and the love he had for his family and friends.
"His family was always number one. Especially his daughter. He was the happiest when he was with her," she said.