DALLAS — A new digital billboard highlighting an unsolved 2014 Dallas homicide has been installed along Interstate 30, the nonprofit organization Season of Justice announced Tuesday.
Dallas investigators and Season of Justice, which provides funding to law enforcement agencies and families to help solve cold cases, hope the billboard will encourage someone to come forward with new information in the stabbing death of Daniel Conley.
At around 10:20 p.m. on Dec. 13, 2014, Dallas police said an unidentified suspect stabbed and killed Conley outside the former City Tavern bar located at 1400 Main Street in Downtown Dallas.
In 2016, the Dallas Police Department published a YouTube video on the details of the case.
In the video, detective Derick Chaney with the Dallas homicide unit said Conley and some friends were leaving a club nearby from where Conley was stabbed. Chaney said that, as the crew was crossing the street, they became involved in a disagreement with someone in a car. As the group continued down an alley near Elm Street, Chaney said the man Conley and his friends were arguing with parked his car and approached them.
At one point during the verbal altercation that followed, the suspect fatally stabbed Conley and fled the scene.
Surveillance video captured the suspect’s vehicle – a 2005 Ford Mustang – leaving the scene.
A sketch of the suspect was also created based on the information provided by witnesses at the scene. Police said the suspect was described as a white or Latino man, standing at 6’2”, weighing between 240 and 260 pounds.
"I just want to know what happened that night. I have lost so much sleep. My daughter has lost a lot of sleep," Stefany Shoemaker said. She said she lost a best friend and father to her daughter.
"The extra time Dan had he spent it with his daughter," she added. "He was a great father. She learned how to change the oil in a truck. She would be doing it in a pink dress and heels but she learned it from her father."
More than seven years later, Conley's killer still hasn't been found.
Season of Justice hopes the new billboard, which include the sketch of the wanted suspect along with the text "Do you recognize this man?", will aid in solving the case.
The billboard is installed at I-30 near Peak Street. It will remain in place until Feb. 27, 2022.
DuBois told WFAA that grant money paid for the billboard and that families across the country who are looking for closure in cases like unsolved murders can apply for assistance.
"So we thought maybe this billboard down close to where the incident happened would be able to give that case. Maybe a push," DuBois said.
"I am here to tell you, the folks at Season of Justice have been great," Shoemaker said. "Every single move they have made has given us hope so that we can get some kind of closure and bring our family together."
It's a push no one wants more than family.
"Daniel stood out. He was a big guy and very tall, 6 feet plus, so when people saw him they would remember him because of his height, and because of his Alopecia, he had no hair, no eyebrows, so he stood out and people remembered seeing him," Shoemaker said. "I just have so many unanswered questions that I really just want know. I want to know what happened."
Detectives ask that anyone who may recognize the suspect from his sketch, or who has any other information about the homicide, call Detective Chaney at 214-671-3650.