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Increased Reward in Cuevas Murder Case

It has been an excruciating wait for justice for the family of murdered Broward business owner and father of four, Francisco Cuevas, whose partial remains were discovered in a steel box.

His family hopes an increased reward of $15,000 will convince someone to come forward with information to solve the case.

"Hopefully somebody that knows something, it will touch their hearts and it will work on their conscience and they will come forward with information," Cuevas' mother, Margarita Goedeke told me from her home in Southwest Florida.

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The additional reward of $14,000 was put up anonymously by friends and family of Cuevas.

Goedeke has endured the disappearance of her son, the discovery of some of his remains in a metal box in a wooded area and the seemingly interminable hunt for his killer or killers.

Like any mother would, Goedeke refuses to let her son's memory vanish.

She and her family created a website -- CLICK HERE -- that explains what happened to her son and shows pictures depicting the love he shared with his family. He is deeply missed.

"I know nothing will bring him back," Goedeke said. "All I want is for the criminals, these monsters to pay for what they did."

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Cuevas disappeared in November 2007 after arriving at his Pompano Beach business for a meeting.

His car was discovered abandoned in Miami months later.

In April 2008, workers in Palm Beach Gardens found a metal box with a human head and other remains inside. More than a year later -- in July 2009 -- those remains were identified as the partial remains of Cuevas.

CBS 4 News reported that authorities served search warrants on Cuevas' business -- Pyro Industries -- in March 2010. Investigators found evidence of blood inside the business and removed a number of items as evidence. They also took a number of DNA samples.

Detectives also reported that Cuevas' business partner, Hagen Christ, withdrew large sums of money from the business bank accounts in the days after Cuevas vanished. Authorities said Christ told them he needed the money to pay expenses.

Christ has not been charged in the case and, according to the Cuevas' family website, left the country just days after the business was searched in March 2010.

Christ does have an unrelated pending criminal case in Broward County. In February 2010 he was arrested for possession of Oxycodone. The case remains open, according to the Broward Clerk of Courts Office.

Goedeke is waiting for the results of the DNA evidence from inside her son's business. And, as times moves on, she has had to make tough decisions, like letting the building that housed her son's business go into foreclosure. The mortgage is too expensive, she said.

But she remains hopeful that a key piece of evidence will emerge to finally show what happened to her dear son on that fateful day in in November 2007 when he disappeared and was murdered.

"Sometimes I still don't believe that he's gone," she said. "They took him away from us. The way they did it -- it's inconceivable."

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