Slain man's family remains fearful

It sounded like neighborhood children playing with firecrackers.

Annoyed, the 50-year-old Roxbury woman stormed out of her two-story townhouse to tell them to stop. But as she walked outside Thursday night, her daughter rushed to her and told her that what she had heard was gunfire.

Her son, 29-year-old Urel Duncan, had been shot in the head as he sat with his sister and two neighbors on their porch on Codman Park in the New Academy Estates housing development.

Two men had calmly walked up to the four adults, who were laughing and joking on the stoop, and without speaking fired four to seven times, then fled.

Duncan's mother found him lying on her stoop, bleeding.

"I don't know why [they] shot me," he told her, the mother said yesterday.

She asked the Globe to withhold her name but identified her son, who was pronounced dead Friday at Boston Medical Center. Doctors told the family they could not perform surgery because the bullet was lodged in the brain.

There have been 50 homicides in Boston this year, compared with 51 at the same time last year, police said.

"He was not part of a gang," said the mother as she stood at the foot of the porch. "He was such a good kid."

Police said yesterday that there had been no arrests in the case.

Two law enforcement sources with knowledge of the investigation said police are analyzing surveillance videos of at least one suspect fleeing the scene.

Elaine Driscoll, spokeswoman for the Boston Police Department, confirmed police are analyzing video from surveillance cameras set up in the neighborhood.

"Investigators have been working around the clock on this investigation and currently have some promising leads," she said.

Relatives and friends worried the street lights lining the housing development were too dim for the cameras to capture the shooters' faces.

About 9:20 p.m., they approached Duncan and the others who had gone outside to enjoy the warm night. After the shooting, Duncan's sister ran to find her mother, screaming "Boyo," her brother's nickname.

His sister also asked that her name be withheld because she, her family, and family friends fear retribution.

Yesterday, bullet holes were in the front door and the plaster of the house.

The stairs along the stoop were lined with teddy bears, candles, and remote controls from the computer video games Duncan loved to play. Baseball caps with notes tucked inside hung from the railings.

"God, please give his mother strength because without him, she goes limp," one note read.

Relatives said they were upset that police had not come by the house to give them an update on the investigation, but Driscoll said, "Homicide investigators have been in constant contact with the victim's family."

Since Saturday, relatives have been streaming in and out of the house to offer condolences.

Yesterday they remembered Duncan, a security guard for AlliedBarton Security Services. A health-conscious athlete, he lifted weights regularly, played football and baseball, and was particular about his diet.

"No meat, not ever," said one aunt.

Duncan, a graduate of Muriel S. Snowden International School, a high school in the Back Bay, led a peaceful life, relatives said.

"He had no drama with nobody," his sister said yesterday. "He came home, lifted his weights. That was it."

His mother urged witnesses to tell police what they know.

"If anyone has any information, please come forward," she said. "We need closure. We need justice."