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It was Nov. 17, and Tyler’s mom, Angela Johnson, and his grandparents, Marlene and Larry Gebhard, appeared with attorneys Thomas Harvey and Blake Strode of the nonprofit public interest firm in downtown St. Louis to explain to reporters that they couldn’t even get the police department to confirm that there was an investigation into Tyler’s death.

“More than four months after Tyler’s death, the Gebhard family knows little more than they have been able to piece together on their own,” Strode said. “They deserve answers, and they deserve them now.”

Tyler Gebhard was shot three times at the Lakeshire home of family friends on July 9. He had been invited by one of the women who lives at the house to attend church that day, as he had with the family many times before.

But something went wrong. According to police, an off-duty police officer who is married to the daughter of the owner of the house shot Tyler, who is biracial, after the young man broke into the home. Tyler was unarmed.

After the news conference, and the online publication of about it, police spokesman Sgt. Shawn McGuire gave me some of the answers the family was seeking.

There was an investigation, he said, and it had been forwarded to the prosecuting attorney’s office.

McGuire called the family’s news conference “irresponsible.”

He said the family members at the news conference didn’t have the answers they sought because “they weren’t the point of contact for us on this shooting … Our point of contact was the father,” McGuire said.

That was news to Tyler Gebhard’s father.

Traye Lockhart-El lives in Arizona. His son was raised mostly by his mother and grandparents.

A couple of days after the news conference, I told him of the police contention that he had been the point of contact for the investigation.

“That’s not true,” Lockhart-El told me. “I haven’t talked to anybody from the police department. No one at all.”

When I told McGuire this, he apologized.

“I believe the confusion was because detectives told me father instead of stepfather,” McGuire told me in an email.

Tyler’s stepfather did speak with police. Once.

It was 9:30 on the night that Tyler died. Chris Johnson answered the door and was told by police that Tyler was dead. That’s the only time he spoke to police about the shooting.

The shifting answers from McGuire only add to the family’s suspicion about whether the death of their son and grandson was investigated properly.

“Not only has our family had to process the immense grief of losing Tyler, we have been left without answers, and still, five months later, seriously question the validity of claims made by the St. Louis County Police Department,” said Marlene Gebhard.

“It’s shameful that they would give families such a runaround, and continue to present a false narrative to the media.”

This has been an emotional roller coaster for the Gebhards, and not just because of Tyler’s death.

Marlene is a longtime fixture in the St. Louis civic community. She was the president of Kirkwood-based grocer for a decade. She believed in the “system,” but now is convinced there is a separate standard for justice when a young, black man is shot by a police officer.

The day after the Gebhard family’s “irresponsible” news conference — McGuire’s word, not mine — Tyler’s death certificate was issued. The family received it a few days later.

On Thursday, after the online publication of this column, McGuire called to accuse me of making up the “irresponsible” quote and said he did not say it.

The undeniable truth is that Tyler Gebhard died of gunshot wounds to the chest and abdomen.

His family still wants to know why.

Prosecutors have had the case since Nov. 2. The family has now been told the medical examiner’s report into Tyler’s death is complete and has been forwarded to the office of prosecuting attorney Bob McCulloch. The waiting continues.

“I don’t see how you can just shoot your friend like that,” says Tyler’s father. “None of it adds up to me.”