Corey also told his mother that the woman had stolen his keys, made a key of her own and had come into his house while he was entertaining someone else.

Then, someone fired shots at the single dad, while he was walking from his car into his home on Paul Lawrence Dunbar Street. Luckily, the shooter missed and his 11-year old twins were safe inside the house.

Cranford, who lives in Columbus, got a frantic call from her son.

"He was very upset and he said, 'Mom, somebody's trying to kill me and I don't understand. I don't know what's going on. I don't know why somebody would want me dead,'" said Cranford.

Cranford said she pleaded with her son to bring his family to Columbus and stay with her for awhile until things calmed down, but he said that he was not going to leave his home.

"The very last words that my son said to me, this is the last words I heard from his voice, 'Mom, if something happens to me, I know you got the kids.' Two weeks later, he was dead," Cranford said.

It happened on May 29, 2018 as Corey and the children were arriving home with a pizza just after 9pm. Dayton Police said Corey was ambushed and gunned down in front of his house and his daughter was shot in the leg.

» UNSOLVED MURDER: Who killed Corey Mitchell?

"The shooter never even cared that there were two children there," said Detective Patricia Tackett. "The bullets were just sprayed. However they went is however they went and the shooter just didn't care."

"I can't fathom who could kill someone in front of their children. That's the gut-wrenching part for me," said Cranford. "How do you live with yourself? How do you get up in the morning and look in the mirror?"

Detective Tackett believes there are multiple people who know about the murder and were in on the planning and execution.

"We have people who are shooting. We have people who are driving the shooter. We have people who were setting this up," said Tackett.

The children told police that their father and the woman he had been seeing had been arguing on the phone all day long. She was arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit murder. However, a Montgomery County Grand

Jury declined to indict her and the original charge has been expunged from her record.

Corey's mother believes there was no indictment because a prosecutor refused to let the twins testify before the grand jury about what they witnessed that night.

"He said, 'Oh, they're too young. I wouldn't put them through this. I wouldn't ask them any questions,' and I'm like, Huh?" said Cranford. "So they never got to testify and I felt like this was just a waste. They were there. They remembered and I just feel that was an injustice on Corey's part, the twins, they didn't get to do anything to help their dad's case."

The twins are now age 19. Corey's son is working and his daughter is in college. They were raised by Carol, who is still trying to come to terms with what happened to her son.

Cranford said, "I just keep saying to myself every day that I wake up, 'My son is dead and somebody killed him. My son is dead and somebody killed him in front of his children."

She has offered rewards and one time she put up a billboard in Dayton to raise awareness about Corey's unsolved murder. Recently, she asked Cold Case Detective Tackett to take another look at the case. They hope that this story will generate new leads and that someone will come forward with information.

"I just can't give up. It's a mother thing, " Cranford said. "I won't ever give up till I die," Cranford said.

She is hoping that a young woman who approached her with information at Corey's funeral, will come forward now and tell the police what she knows. You can call Detective Tackett at 937-333-7109.