This week will mark a year since Gainesville teenager Sebastian Ochsenius was shot and killed, but his family says time has not made the loss any easier to take.

This week will mark a year since Gainesville teenager Sebastian Ochsenius was shot and killed, but his family says time has not made the loss any easier to take.



The person who fatally shot the 16-year-old Buchholz High School student on June 29, 2010, has never been identified, which makes the pain more difficult to bear, said his father, Boris Ochsenius.



"We were thinking with time it would be less painful, but it's getting worse," he said. "My wife and me — we miss him a lot. We just don't believe it."

Sebastian had been helping his older brother, Boris Jr., move into a new house in the days before his death. Sebastian was going to spend the night with his brother, his family said, but went back to his home at 4431 NW 32nd Ave. after a friend in the neighborhood called and asked him to come home so they could play video games.



They were playing in Sebastian's room when Sebastian left to go to an office area in the home to check another computer, Alachua County sheriff's deputies have reported. Deputies said someone entered the home through a sliding glass door at about 3:45 a.m. The intruder or intruders encountered Sebastian, and he was shot, according to the Sheriff's Office.



Boris Ochsenius said he heard gunshots, while Sebastian's friend reported hearing both the sounds of a struggle and gunfire, the Sheriff's Office has reported.



Sebastian died in his father's arms.



Most of the 25 detectives at the Sheriff's Office worked on the case initially, but as leads have dwindled, so has the time investigators have spent on it.



Sheriff Sadie Darnell said few leads now come but that investigators thoroughly check out those that do.



"We have very few leads. Part of the frustration with this case is that we have hopes there is information out there, and it is just not coming forward. We hope people will stay interested in the case and come forward if they have information. Even if they don't think it's important, it might be," Darnell said. "The family wants us to solve it more than anyone. Second to them, it's a case that we want to solve also and feel — rightly so — some pressure to solve."



Almost $30,000 has been raised as a reward, and another fundraiser will be held today at the Zaxby's Restaurant on Northwest 43rd Street.



Ochsenius said he hopes the reward will prompt someone with knowledge of the killing to report it to authorities. He added that the family has a private investigator working on the case as well.



"We are going to keep raising the money and hope somebody will talk. We are not going to let it go," he said. "Somebody is free for the damage they did."



Patrick Sessions can empathize with the Ochsenius family.



His daughter, Tiffany Sessions, was a University of Florida student when on Feb. 9, 1989, she disappeared while on a walk on Williston Road.



She was never found, and no one has been arrested in the case, which received nationwide publicity at the time.



"It's always difficult to lose somebody, but a child — it's the old story that you never expect your child to die before you do," Sessions said. "It's just a particularly painful thing, and making it worse is that they haven't solved the crime, because that keeps it so much in your mind. The only thing that helps is time. I feel for them — it's a tough thing."



Ochsenius said family members continue to have hope that a break will come but added they are questioning why their son had to die.



"We've had a lot of support. There are a lot of good people," he said. "But I'm losing the capability of being surprised by things people do. People don't act the right way."