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Grief springs eternal for slain man's family; Grandmother and mother hold out hope for justice 4 years afer unsolved execution-style killing of 26-year-old.

Article Excerpt
Byline: John Koopman

Virginia Ortiz can't let go.

Her grandson, Donato LaBanca, was slain four years ago, shot execution style and his body laid carefully on a squalid street in San Francisco's Bayview district.

Police say they think they know who killed him and that the suspect is in prison on another charge. But no one has ever been charged, no one held accountable for taking the life of a sweet-faced 26-year-old man.

"I talked to a psychic about this," Ortiz says, sitting at her dining-room table in her Daly City home. "She said the case will never be solved. I believe her."

That doesn't mean she will ever forgive or forget.

"You don't have to look over your shoulder anymore," Ortiz wrote in an "in memoriam" item she paid to publish in The Chronicle. "But your so-called friends do."

Ortiz and her daughter, Donato's mother, Margarita Ortiz, spend a day every other weekend at LaBanca's grave. They cut the grass, trim it, water it; they clean the headstone with rubbing alcohol and a Q-tip.

"I always say it's time for Donato's haircut," Margarita Ortiz said, smiling, on a recent Sunday afternoon as she snipped grass blades with scissors.

Donato was born Sept. 4, 1976. He was an only...

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