By Robin Postell

VALDOSTA, Ga. – Friday. January 20, 2012. A day that looked and felt just like any other day, according to Hilda Edgerton about the day her husband was murdered eight years ago today.

“There was nothing to make us be on guard at all,” she added. “That’s why it slammed us so hard, emotionally, physically – and spiritually, too. It did a lot to us.”

Every year around this time she allows herself to think back, instead of forward. To survive her husband Stephon “Juan Gotti” Edgerton’s cold-blooded unsolved murder she has had to let it go, let God handle it.

The unsolved murder of popular Valdosta 96.7 radio DJ “Juan Gotti” remains one of Lowndes County’s most jarring.

“The memory of the last time we talked was right directly after school,” his widow told Valdosta Today, who had just left a Martin Luther King, Jr. Day parade in Lake City with her new fiance’. “He was getting ready to go into work at 6 p.m. He was reminding the children and me that he was going to get on the grill and cook for my grandmother’s birthday the next day. He’d just introduced the boys to basketball and he was going to play with them.”

Just a father and his family, heading off to work. He’d just turned 40 in December.

“He threw up his peace signs – and the boys still do it to this day – and he said, ‘I love y’all, we’ll see you tomorrow,'” Hilda said.

And that was it. There would be no tomorrow.

Her sons, Christian and Winston, were 7 and 6 respectively. Their daughter, Mia, was 13 at the time. They all loved their daddy.

Hilda has a happy spirit, in spite of the pain the last eight years have brought upon her and her family.

“Everybody else remembers him as ‘Juan Gotti,'” she says with a laugh. “But he was Stephon, daddy, son to us. He was such a clown. We were just about to hit our 14th wedding anniversary.”

The two met at Hope Missionary Baptist Church, which she says still hasn’t fully recovered from his loss. He played piano there for 18 years and was beloved by the congregation. Originally from Waycross, he had moved here to attend what was VSC at the time. Hilda was a born and bred Valdosta girl.

Another laugh. She has memories of Stephon good enough to outweigh the bad.

There was so much bad that happened, you wonder how she endures.

“His shift was from 6 p.m. to midnight,” Hilda told VT. “He always did his last thing on the radio at 11:50 and he was always ready to walk out the door. And that’s when he was approached.”

Hilda said he used to wear a headset up under his dreads. “He had his mind in survival mode,” she said. “After he was shot he was able to call 911.”

Hilda said that, “according to the news, he described the shooter as a white male, wearing either a cap, or ski mask.”

Although she was never able to listen to the 911 recording, Rev. Floyd Rose did for her. “One of the main things Rev. Rose said that struck him was that Stephon kept saying, ‘He ruined me! He destroyed me.'”

This is the hard part for Hilda, he unbearable thought of listening to her husband’s final words.

“He kept saying he didn’t know who it was, trying to describe the suspect,” Hilda recounted. While the 911 dispatcher attempted to keep him on the line and get more information, according to Hilda they had a hard time determining where he was, thinking he was at a popular night club on Highway 84 that has since burned down.

He was shot once in the head, twice in the torso. “That person intended to make sure he was dead,” Hilda said. “I thank God he didn’t lie there and die like a dog, that God gave him that divine strength to lie there and make that call. He didn’t code until they got him to the hospital.”

Investigated by the Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office, some people told her they felt like they weren’t doing all they could to find the killer.

“I beg to differ, because Christie Griffin, the investigator, she really worked hard on the case,” Hilda said. “And it tore her up to see it affect us like it did…and I think she was doing all she could to find answers.”

Unfortunately, there were only had dummy security video cameras, Hilda said they found out later. “Nobody knew that till after the fact,” she added.

The mystery consumed not only Hilda but the community and those closest to her. Theories abounded.

“Some people said you’re not pushing enough and I said you don’t know what it’s like to keep this home and raise this family,” she told Valdosta Today on Monday. “They had me consumed the first two years it was ridiculous. It was so overwhelming to heal I almost had to tune people out and just say God, when it’s time for it to be revealed you will do it when we can handle it. Does it hurt that we don’t know, yes, and we want to keep the story out so people don’t forget.”

Lowndes County Sheriff Ashley Paulk told Valdosta Today that though he wasn’t sheriff at the time of the murder, he was of the opinion that the most likely suspect was killed in a shoot-out several years after Stephon was killed, but he did not give specifics of the investigation or the identity of the suspect. “There’s no way to know for sure if that was him,” Sheriff Paulk said. “We are always open to hearing new information if anyone has any, please come forward.”

Today, Hilda works in Quitman and Christian, now 16, plays football for the Brooks County High School Trojans, coached by Maurice Freeman, who goes to their church.

Winston, now 14, goes to Valdosta High School and is a Marching Cat.

And Mia, she’s 21, getting her biology degree from Savannah State. “She looks a lot like her daddy,” Hilda said proudly. “She can sing like him, too!”

More of that Hilda laughter. So warm, so kind.

“My children say they don’t care how old they are, they want to know,” Hilda said. ” This is the only time of the year I publicly bring it back up.”

Hilda said she missed his witty humor, and his musical genius talent.

“He could touch any instrument and play it,” she said. “He had a voice that would mesmerize anybody. All three of the children can sing too. I sing, too, and he said he’d never marry anybody who couldn’t sing!”

Here she laughed the most.

She paused. A brief moment.

Hilda’s heart is healing with her new love, Joseph Lee Miles, who proposed to her at the Brooks Co. School System’s Christmas Social on Dec. 1.

“It was a total surprise,” she said. “He has stepped up as a great example an role model for the children,” she said. “He always says he knows he can’t replace their father but he vows to be there for them and me 100 percent. He says all the time that they are amazing respectful children and their father would be proud.”