Mother searches for answers after her son was tortured, killed in Canarsie

CANARSIE, Brooklyn (WABC) -- A Brooklyn mother is in unbearable pain after her son was lured to an apartment building, tortured, and then killed.

Now, she's pleading for answers as police are trying to figure out what happened.

"I wouldn't wish this, I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy," said Allison Shinn, the victim's mother.

For Shinn, the shock of her loss has given way to searing, debilitating pain.

"He was murdered and I want justice. I want somebody to say something. I want somebody to come forward and give me the peace that I need," Shinn said.

Her pride and joy, Amani Miller, died a sadistic death earlier this month.

Lured, police believe, to a barbaric attack in a fifth floor hallway at the Bay View Houses in Canarsie, where his assailants tortured him. They stabbed him more than a dozen times and shot him repeatedly, including at least once in the head.

"Everybody says how nice he is and how sweet he is and how humble. He was a good kid. And he did not deserve what happened to him," said Pamela Gray, the victim's grandmother.

At his wake Friday night, there was just one question: why?

"It's unfathomable that something like, as vicious and...," said K. Bain, a neighborhood activist. He was at a loss for words.

Cops are almost as stumped as the family. Miller has no criminal past, no known contacts in Canarsie, and lived miles away in Bedford-Stuyvesant.

The crime happened at 2:30 on a Monday afternoon in a NYCHA building with no cameras and where no one claims to have seen anything.

The biggest lead so far? Video of a livery cab that detectives believe the suspects took to leave the scene.

But it was wet that day. Their only hope of seeing the plate was obscured on the lens by a drop of rain.

The family has returned to the Bay View Houses with megaphones, begging residents to come forward. But so far, nothing.

"My son is never going to come back, but please say something. I need help and I need to catch who did this to my son so they don't, they don't do it to somebody else," Shinn said.