HOUSTON -- Nancy Rodriguez still cherishes the last Mother’s Day card she received from her son Paul in 1991.
"Mom, I hope you have a great Mother's Day," she reads. "I don't tell you enough, but I love you and miss you. Love Paul."
Paul Broussard was brutally murdered a few weeks later in what would become Houston's most infamous gay-bashing hate crime.
"He was working at a bank in retirement accounts and we used to joke around, 'Yeah, your mom is going to be old enough to retire,'" Broussard remembers. "But I never, never imagined that Paul would die before me."
Eighteen years later, the Houston mother is on a mission to make sure her son's killer stays in prison.
Jon Buice is up for parole so Rodriguez went before the parole board Tuesday to try and persuade them that he belongs behind bars.
"I think he needs to stay in there longer because I don't think he really knows what he's done," said Rodriguez.
Andy Kahan, a victim's advocate for The City of Houston, also spoke to the parole board.
"Send the message out to wanna-be murderers that if you commit these type of crimes, you will serve a healthy chunk of your sentence," Kahan said.
But Buice has an unlikely advocate on his side. Gay activist Ray Hill believes Buice has been rehabilitated. Hill once served time in prison and met Buice through his prison radio show.
"I have successfully done time. So I am showing him how to do time. Meanwhile, I am plumbing his mind for any sign of homophobia and I don't find it," said Ray Hill.
But the mother who will never find a new Mother's Day card says it's not about rehabilitation -- it's about justice.
The board is expected to make its decision later this month.
