Family photo of Queens bodega owner Bolivar Cruz shows him surrounded by his daughters and grandchildren.
When Bolivar Cruz was shot in the head during a robbery in his Ozone Park bodega last June, one photo captured the heart of New York City.
Cruz, a Dominican immigrant, was the father of eight children - seven daughters in New York and one son in the Dominican Republic. The family photo of the father surrounded by his children showed the magnitude of what went missing when his life was cut short.
A year later, Cruz's daughters are marking a grim Father's Day. They have sold the store on 131st St., and sadder still, most of them do not speak to each other. Cruz's killers have yet to be found.
"My father was the glue that kept us in contact, but since he's been gone, it's been something different," said Angelina Cruz, 25, who was working with her father in his store when the robber came in demanding money.
She said family disputes, which she described only vaguely as "everyone wants to get in for their own interest," have created a rift between the four sisters from one mother and the three from another.
She said the entire year has been difficult, but this month - with her father's birthday, the anniversary of his death and Father's Day all within two weeks - is particularly painful.
"I've seen nothing but darkness in my life this year," Angelina said. "It's still killing me. I go through days where I start crying. And I can't talk about my dad or see his picture. I want to lock myself up and close myself off to the world."
Angelina's father pulled a gun out from behind the counter but was shot in the face by the masked robbers before he could defend himself. She said the memory of her father bleeding on the store's floor haunts her.
In August, two months after the shooting, police arrested four members of a Crips gang in a string of bodega robberies in Queens. They hoped it would lead to an arrest in Cruz's murder. But it remains an open case.
"The last I knew, I talked to [the police] three months after my dad's passing, and they gave me the same story. They're working, they're searching, but no such luck," Angelina said. "I just completely gave up."
Angelina, who had worked full-time at her father's store, has a new job working as an administrative assistant in a doctor's office.
Belkis, the eldest of the Cruz sisters, has moved out of the country. Karina has a son who turned 2 this month. Jallisa is in high school. Adriana, the youngest, is now 10. Angelina Cruz has not seen any of them since last year.
Angelina Cruz has been keeping in touch with her brother, Jorge, whom she met for the first time at her father's funeral in the Dominican Republic.
When she speaks to him, she avoids the stories about her father - the way he played practical jokes and gave the neighborhood kids candy for free - because the memories are too painful.
She believes that if the legal system cannot provide justice for her father, God will.
"They will eventually pay for it one day," she said. "God is great. What you do to someone will come back 10 times harder."
