APD: Seven unsolved murders in 2012

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - Albuquerque has one of the best records in the nation for solving murders, but the number of murders in 2012 was up from the year before.  Seven of those cases are still unsolved with those killers still on the loose.

As investigators continue to search for answers, the victim's families are searching for justice.

"I would like to see that the two gentlemen who did this, that justice be served to them, and to the family that closure be coming up soon" a friend of Jeremy Trujillo's family told KRQE News 13  back in March.

Trujillo, 16 and Samuel Gutierrez, 17, were shot and killed in March near Unser and Arenal. Part of the murders was caught on tape. Surveillance video from the scene shows the boys walking in the arroyo when two men riding bikes confront them shoot them.

Then there is Rafael Serra who was killed January 29.  Police have released few details in his murder.

Next is Robert Smith, 55, who was shot March 8, and left to die in the street near Central and Pennsylvania.  Smith's killer was described as a black man in his 40's who had a salt and pepper mustache.

In August a relative found Kenneth King, 57, dead in a home near Gibson and University but investigators never found anything else.

Police say there are three other cases in their unsolved files, but suspects have been arrested and charged in connection with those deaths. Because the cases aren't closed they count as unsolved.

The national average for police departments' murder solvency rate is about 50 percent.  in 2012 APD solved 83 percent of the city's murders.