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The blood on the street was barely dry when people started walking through it.
Tiffany Chambers watched as people stepped on the stain, as cars drove over it — as if it wasn't from a person, she said.
Less than a day after Stevan Ryan Chambers was gunned down in what soon would become a double-homicide, Tiffany got a bucket and towel to clean up what was left of her brother.
But now, weeks later, she hopes it is not so easy for the people of Magna to forget Chambers, killed Aug. 17 at 2880 S. 9100 West, or Shelli Brown, an acquaintance of his who was found shot to death two days later in a park only a half mile away.
"There's still a murderer in the community, but it's all quiet now. What the hell?" Tiffany Chambers told The Tribune. "When they killed Shelli, the cops were everywhere. I don't know how they killed someone that night, in public, and got away with it.
"Whoever it is, clearly isn't afraid of the police."
Investigators are awaiting lab results they believe will allow them to make arrests, said Unified Police Lt. Lex Bell last week.
Until that happens, Chambers' loved ones say their lives are on hold as they cling to memories of a 26-year-old expecting father who made the most of a difficult life — but spent his final days terrified of "evil" people who were "after him."
"My brother was a good kid who had a rough start," Tiffany Chambers said.
From an early age, Stevan had struggled with serious attention deficit disorder, bipolar disorder and difficulties reading social cues, said his mother, Brenda Chambers.
But she makes no excuses for what she sees as the source of his problems: his upbringing. She says she has little doubt her youngest son suffered from fetal alcohol syndrome due to her alcoholism. She spent much of her son's early childhood drunk or high, she says. Both she and his father were addicted to drugs, and during elementary school, Chambers went to live with family friend Roy Spanton and his partner, Lance Collins.
Spanton said Chambers was clearly troubled. He and Collins moved from Salt Lake City to Magna so they could have enough land for a horse for Chambers.
"We thought a horse would do him good," Spanton said.
Chambers kept his life on track until he turned 18, according to his parents. With the support of his adoptive fathers, he reconnected with his mother, who graduated from the Odyssey House rehabilitation program and has been sober for 11 years, she said. He played football at Cyprus High School for a time, and had some close friends, Spanton said.
But when he turned 18, he stopped taking his medications, his mother said. He began to self-medicate with marijuana, she said. Then he dropped out of high school during his senior year, just one month before graduation, Spanton said.
For several years after that, Chambers "drifted," his family said. He struggled to keep a job through his mental disabilities and illnesses. He periodically returned to Magna to live with his fathers.
But about a year ago, Chambers began a serious relationship with a woman. Soon they were expecting a baby girl, due Oct. 3. They converted her parents' garage into a little apartment, his family said. Chambers had asked his mother for his birth certificate so he could get a marriage license. He had given a ring to his girlfriend, his mother said. Spanton said Chambers had begun to clean up the horse pasture for the wedding.
"He had been emotionally handicapped," his mother said. "But he found his love."
Less than two weeks before his death, Brenda Chambers said, he posted on Facebook: "I'm proud of myself and I'm living my dream."
But in the days before he died, he became distressed. He would appear happy but suddenly begin to cry, Spanton said. Two days before he was shot, he visited his fathers.
"We had to walk him home," he said. "He wouldn't walk home. He was terrified. He wouldn't say what was up. He just kept saying somebody was evil, and they were after him. I asked, 'What do you mean?' Then he just said, 'Oh, nothing.' "
On Aug. 16, just hours before he would be shot to death, Chambers called his mother.
"He asked me, 'Mom, are you proud of me?' " Brenda Chambers recalled. "I told him, 'Yes, I am proud of you.' He had done so much trying to get his life as straight as possible, doing he best that he could do."
"Then he told me he forgave me," she said. "And we both cried."
During that conversation, Chambers confessed he was scared, and he believed he was being followed. But he wouldn't share details, Brenda Chambers said. Like his fathers, she suspected he might be suffering from paranoia — something that often accompanied his bipolar disorder.
"In hindsight, I wish I had dug into it a little deeper," Spanton said, his voice halting.
When Spanton heard the news that a man's body had been found very close to where Chambers and his girlfriend were living, he rushed over to find his worst fears confirmed.
Two days later, the body of Shelli Brown, also 26, was found in Copper Park. She also had been shot to death, just a day after she attended a vigil for Chambers. Police have confirmed the two homicides appear to be related.
Both Brown and Chambers have been described by their families as struggling. But both families have pleaded with the Magna community not to write off the homicides as "deserved," or even predictable. Neither victim was thought to associate with violent people, and neither had gang ties, their families said.
Investigators were flooded with tips in the days after the homicides, Bell said. Detectives have conducted dozens of interviews and believe they will be ready to file a case with prosecutors and make arrests soon — possibly in coming weeks.
Meanwhile, Tiffany Chambers said, the family is languishing in the mystery.
"We don't know the truth about how he was killed," she said. "When we went to look at the body, they had a sheet down to his eyebrows and they just said, 'Whatever you do, don't lift that sheet.' It's just so hard to move on without information. How are any of us supposed to move on without knowing the truth about what happened to him? How did I end up on my hands and knees, scrubbing my brother's blood out of the street?"