On an early Tuesday morning about 1:30 a.m., five days before Christmas 2016, breaking glass woke a Newport News home on 31st Street near West Avenue. Inside, 51-year-old Eduardo Hernandez Amezcua — known as Coach Ed or Pastor Ed and a youth pastor at Next Level Church — was shot during what family described as a home invasion. He was taken to a nearby hospital with life-threatening injuries and later died of his wounds.

Family and church members rallied around his wife, Amber, helping move their belongings and raising funds for funeral costs. Amber testified at trial that she awoke to the sound of glass breaking and saw her husband struggling with a stranger, later identified as Monte Michael Stokes, and that Amezcua was shot in the head in front of her.

Court records presented at trial showed Stokes tested positive for alcohol, cocaine, marijuana and a drug found in anti-anxiety medication the night of the shooting. In December 2018 a jury found Monte Michael Stokes guilty of second-degree murder; he was scheduled for sentencing in March of the following year. Does anyone have memories of Coach Ed or information about that night that could help fill in remaining questions?