Family Still Searching For Answers In Murder Case, 9 Years Later
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Twenty-four-year-old Matt Novak was riding home with two friends after celebrating Philadelphia's Puerto Rican Day Parade on September 28, 2008, when their car broke down at 6th and Green Streets, just outside Northern Liberties.
Investigators say surveillance video shows Novak getting into a Navy Blue Chevy Impala, with three people inside.
Novak's father, Matt. Sr., was at home in Mullica Hill, New Jersey.
"I got a phone call from Philly PD that my son has been shot and he is at Hanhemann Hospital and I should get there as quickly as possible," Novak Sr. said.
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He rushed to the hospital with his wife, where he met up with his son's friends.
"The doctor came in and basically told us that he had passed. It was such a shock to my system that I didn't believe him at first. I just stood there and said 'no.' And then once it started to sink in, I just started to violently vomit," said Novak. "It just destroyed me, and my wife and his two friends. It was devastating, and it's been devastating every day since, and there is not a day that goes by that I don't think about him and miss him."
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Nine years later, they continue to search for answers, and have created a website called WhoKilledMattNovak.com in hopes of drawing in tips.
"We (also) have the billboard campaign going on 676 in Camden, right across the street from Cooper [Hospital]. We have another one up in Pennsauken on Route 130," Novak explained. "We changed the design this year, and it really pops."
There's a $45,000 reward for information leading to an arrest.
"I plea to people to put themselves in my shoes," Novak said. "If their brother or son, or loved one, were to be killed, you would want to know who did it, and you would want justice for that person."