BYRON CENTER, Mich. -- It's been more than three months since former Byron Center pastor Dale Cross was found dead, his body lying next to his vehicle just blocks away from home.
The Kent County Sheriff's Department says they've poured through tips and are continuing to investigate. But the family is still searching for answers and says they believe the department dropped the ball on this investigation.
"The holidays are coming up and he's not here, and this is what we have of him," says Dale Cross' daughter, Tammy Blood.
Photos and mementos, the only things left for the Cross family to hold on to as they continue to wait for answers involving the mysterious death of the family patriarch.
"It's like we're living a movie, you never dream that this is where we would be today," Tammy says.
Just after 6 p.m. Aug. 6, the 66-year-old former pastor's body was found lying next to his GMC Envoy in the area of 68th street and Burlingame. Cross had a single gunshot wound to the head.
An affidavit issued by the Kent County district judge said that dispatch received a call from a witness around 5:56 p.m. that night who said that a man was lying on the road with a handgun next to him.
"When it initially came out it was based on the information that was given to us by one of the witnesses at the scene they had labeled it a suicide that's how it was called into our dispatch center," says Lt. Ron Gates with the Kent County Sheriff's Department's Detective Bureau.
So police investigated the incident as "a possible completed suicide," something family members were skeptical about from the beginning.
"If you knew my dad, you'd know that this wasn't his character. You don't pull off on the side of the road, jack your car up to change a flat tire and decide to kill yourself," says Blood.
And that's where Cross's family feels investigators started dropping the ball on the investigation, looking at his case as a possible suicide based off of initial information.
Since then, the family feels the department failed to follow leads, missed opportunities to interview and get footage from neighbors, and more.
"From the get go things were just not good. They even admitted it! They said we made a mistake, we did not do what we should've done within the first 48 to 72 hours," says Blood.
The autopsy showed the entry wound to be on the top left side of the head, Cross was right handed.
The details started raising doubts it could even possibly be a suicide, changing the way the department started to investigate his death.
"They did everything they could at the time, they waited for the autopsy results, when the autopsy results came back, that made it look more suspicious to us and then we all met as a team in this room and we talked about different tasks and it did take different direction at that point," says Lt. Gates.
The department says they have followed leads, tips, and interviewed witnesses and hope to find some answers after more forensic results come back from testing.
For now, the family will wait for the answers to questions they've had for more than three months now.
"We want justice for my dad and it's hard to not have closure, it's hard to continue to live life. As life goes on it doesn't get easier. I miss him more and more each day," Blood says.
Police are still looking for a man and woman who may have been at the scene of the crime. The man is white, about 5-feet-5 inches tall, around 30 years old with a thin build. And the woman is white with long dark hair. Police say they may’ve been in a white or light gray regular-cab smaller truck, with a red or maroon hood.
Anyone with more information about the case should call the Kent County Sheriff’s Office at 616-632-6357 or Silent Observer at 616-774-2345.
The Cross family is looking to hire a private investigator and has a set up a Go Fund Me to pay for that. Click here to go to the link.
