Philadelphia father, son gunned down after returning from family cookout; suspects still sought

PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- The return home from a family cookout turned deadly for a Philadelphia father and his young son.

Now, a grieving mother and widow is asking for the public's help in finding the killer.

READ | Father, 9-year-old son killed in one of several Memorial Day weekend shootings in Philly

Vanessa Frame remembers her husband Gerald "Jerry" Parks and her son Jamel Parks as being two sides of the same coin.

"I always tell him he was his father's child because they were just like the same. He was just like the most friendly little boy in the world," she said.

She says the night of Sunday, May 29th, 2022, she was expecting the pair home from a cookout at a relative's house.

Just after 10:30 p.m., she heard something outside her home along the 2100 block of Carver Street in Philadelphia's Wissinoming section.

"I just heard all this noise that sounded like gunshots which woke me, like, kind of made me jump out of my bed," she recalled.

She says she saw Jerry's car, with Jerry and Jamel still inside it. Both the 37-year-old and the 9-year-old had been shot.

They were taken to nearby hospitals, where they were pronounced dead a short time later.

"Seeing both of them laying in the car the way they were, it's just like very, very tragic. It's nothing that a person would want to see," Frame said.

Police say two shooters in a dark-colored vehicle, possibly an SUV, fired at least 13 shots at the car as it rolled past.

"A child lost their life for no reason, you know he didn't have anything to do with it. So if there was a problem with Jerry or whatever the case may be, my child had nothing to do with that," said Frame.

The City of Philadelphia is offering up to $20,000 in reward money for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the person responsible.

All you have to do is call the Citizens Crime Commission at 215-546-TIPS. All calls will remain anonymous.

"It's horrible for people to know what happened and just not say anything. I just don't understand it," said Frame.