Trackdown: Help find Pedro Amaya's killer

In this week’s Trackdown, Dallas police hope the public can give them the keys to unlock an unsolved murder from 16 months ago.

The keys that police need are the names of the two men caught on surveillance cameras at the Vineyards at The Ranch Apartments on Skillman Street before and after an innocent man was killed.

The murder happened during what police believe was an attempted robbery on September 4, 2017, in an area along Skillman just north of 635.

Dallas Homicide Det. Tonya McDaniel revisited the apartments where Pedro Pablo Amaya lived and as killed.

“A lot of things have happened here,” she said.

In July 2018, two special agents watched someone in the Vineyards at The Ranch shoot a man who blocked their car with an SUV and got out with a gun.

Nine months before Amaya was murdered, a shooting in the same block of Skillman took the life of a 19-year-old home from college for the holidays. Police say he did nothing wrong. Aside from the good people who live in the area, it seems crime is an unwelcome neighbor.

“It could have been an attempted robbery gone wrong,” McDaniel said. “That’s what it kind of looks like since there were a lot of robberies here in the area during that time.”

Amaya was a hardworking husband and father. He was sitting on the steps outside his apartment around 1:30 a.m. Video captured two men walk through the courtyard and see Amaya sitting on his third-floor stairs.

“His apartment is not too far down from where he was sitting at, minding his own business,” McDaniel said. “People heard the gunshot. They did look up. They see uh some black males over here where Pedro was sitting and flee on foot. And after the gunshots are heard, you see those same two individuals leave back the exact same way.”

Amaya was left for dead.

“He was a father. He was a son. His family really cared about him. No one has come to me and said anything about him being involved in any type of situations that he would have brought this upon himself,” McDaniel said.

Anyone with information is urged to call Det. McDaniel or Crime Stoppers at (214) 373-8477. A reward is being offered.