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The final text message Emily Chavez received from Cameron Ray, her boyfriend of more than two years and roommate since December, came at 1:54 a.m. on March 18. It was three words long.
I miss you.
Chavez and Ray were renting a house in Palestine, about a two-hour drive southeast of Dallas. Ray is more of a homebody, she said. He does not go out often. When he does — like he did that night to celebrate his best friend’s birthday in Old East Dallas — they text intermittently throughout the evening. She doesn’t fall asleep until she knows he is safe.
Ray texted Chavez at 1:54 a.m. His best friend called at 2:18.
“He’s like, ‘Where are you at, Emily? Where are you at?’” Chavez said. “‘Cam just got shot, Emily. Cam just got shot.’”
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Ray, 20, suffered a fatal gunshot wound to the head shortly after a skirmish between some members of his group of friends and another group outside a bar on the 3600 block of Greenville Avenue. His loved ones want justice and are committed to bringing it. Since Ray’s death on March 18, they have tracked the social media activity of people whom they believe are responsible.
Cowboys cornerback Kelvin Joseph is one of them.
Joseph was a passenger in the black SUV from which shots were fired at Ray and his friends shortly after the groups’ confrontation, Joseph’s attorney, Barry Sorrels, said Friday. The attorney told The Dallas Morning News that Joseph was not the shooter. Dallas police investigators interviewed Joseph for a few hours Friday afternoon, and no charges against him have been filed at this time.
Joseph became linked to the homicide investigation after police on Wednesday released surveillance footage of him and five others before the shooting, asking the public for help identifying them.
“It makes me very angry, the fact that he is trying to clear his name,” Chavez said of Joseph. “I understand you’re a superstar. You play football. You have a career. You have your life pretty set out. But if you’re so innocent, why did it take the police to put out the video and for your fans to identify you for you to admit?”
Mourning and searching
Most people called him Cam.
Some of those who knew him from basketball — he was a standout at Athens High School — affectionately called him “Boom.”
Ray was the firstborn to Christi Ray, and he was her only son. She said he was respectful and loving, someone who made a point to call his mother daily.
“That was my baby,” Christi Ray said. “I’m just trying to stay strong, but it’s hard.”
She described him as a protective older brother to his three sisters. When one of them got a boyfriend, he wanted to know. And Ray always tried to make people laugh. He was gifted with a sense of humor from both parents, Christi Ray said, and wasn’t afraid of acting goofy or dancing to elicit laughter from those around him.
”He kept everybody laughing,” she said.
This Monday will mark a month since Ray’s death. Between mourning and funeral planning, many of those closest to Ray have devoted much of the remaining energy into trying to help solve the mystery surrounding his death. They noticed breadcrumbs on social media that began to surface the day he died, while the family was still at the hospital.
Chavez said that she noticed an Instagram post of hers about Ray was “liked” by an account she did not recognize.
Chavez clicked on the profile and found a recently posted music video that included a “You Know Da Vibe” group rapper standing next to a black SUV. Maybe it was a coincidence, but because the SUV matched the description of the suspect’s vehicle, she said that she sent the image to Dallas police.
“Our thoughts are with the victim’s family and loved ones, first and foremost,” a Dallas police spokesperson said Friday. “I can’t comment on details of the ongoing investigation, but I can confirm our detectives are working around the clock following up on leads and conducting interviews, working to find the person or persons responsible for Cameron’s murder.”
Video of a black SUV was only the start.
Other posts from Chavez and Ray’s family were liked by YKDV-affiliated accounts. They documented what they noticed, preserving images and videos before the social media accounts were scrubbed.
Joseph has a rapper pseudonym, YKDV Bossman Fat, that predates his time in the NFL. YKDV stands for “You Know Da Vibe.”
Since the police released surveillance footage, which included Joseph wearing a YKDV medallion on his necklace, the family believes they have identified an Instagram account for five of the six people connected to Ray’s death. Krista Wigfall, Ray’s stepmom, called the Cowboys on Thursday morning and reached a high-ranking Cowboys official, notifying him of her belief Joseph was among the men in the surveillance videos.
One YKDV account liked a Chavez post, she said, as recently as Friday afternoon. She sent a screengrab to The Dallas Morning News that corroborated.
Justice, they hope, is near
‘My love’
Shortly before he was shot, Ray told his girlfriend he missed her.
She misses him, too.
Following that frantic 2:24 a.m. phone call with his friend, Chavez immediately packed a suitcase with everything from her pants and shirts to toiletries like shampoo before driving two hours to the hospital where Ray was transported. She prepared for a long recovery. Police officers comforted her during the panic attack that came upon arriving to find Ray on life support.
Still, she texted him from the hospital lobby. She texted him from beside his bed.
She knew he couldn’t respond, but there was much she wanted to tell him.