D'Lisa Kelley was found in a Dallas neighborhood beaten and strangled in March 2014, a week after her grandmother begged police to check on her. Her murder remains unsolved.
It was a controversial case that raised serious doubts about how an officer handled a desperate call for help.
Now, NBC 5 has obtained never before seen surveillance video that may help crack the case.
Kelley's family says she had a laugh that was infectious.
"That laugh. She had a laugh that would grab you from across the street, 'Who is that?'" recalled Kelley's mother, Lasondra Kelley.
But the sounds of joy that for 24 years her mother remembers well were disrupted by a single phone call March 7, 2014, from the young woman's grandmother.
"She was like, 'I've been trying to contact Lisa, have you talked to her?'" said Lasondra Kelley. "I haven't talked to her," she told her mother.
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It would be a haunting phone call, in fact.
"She's like, 'Jasmine says she can hear Lisa screaming in the background, and she's screaming for her life,'" said Lasondra Kelley.
With no word from D'Lisa Kelley from that moment on, her grandmother then called 911.
"She was screaming for her life, somebody was beating her and we don't know who has with her," her grandmother can be heard on the 911 call.
That chilling call to the Communications Center at Dallas City Hall would soon turn even more ominous once the dispatcher explained the grandmother's grave concerns to a Dallas police sergeant.
The sergeant can be heard on the communications channel laughing and did not appear to be too concerned. He was later reprimanded for ignoring the family's initial sense of urgency to find D'Lisa.
Lasondra Kelley says it was very unusual for D'Lisa to be away from her son.
"Her son is her number one priority. Up until that day she had never been away from her son 24 hours," Lasondra Kelley said.
From the very beginning, her son, Dunyae, was her entire world. The two had an inseparable bond. He was just 2 years old the day his mom went missing. Forty-eight hours after D'Lisa Kelley's grandmother made that panicked 911 call, a missing person's investigation was launched.
NBC 5 obtained a key piece of evidence in the case: never before seen surveillance video from Dallas police. The video shows D'Lisa Kelley walking into a convenience store at the corner of Overton Road and Sunnyvale Street in Dallas and then getting into a blue 1986 Mercury Grand Marquis.
Detectives determined that 33 minutes later, she was fighting for her life while on the phone with her sister, Jasmine.
"All she could hear was D'Lisa screaming, 'Stop, stop!' And somebody was hitting her and telling her to, 'Shut up, shut up,'" D'Lisa's grandmother could be heard saying on that 911 call.
With an active missing person's case underway, he body was found exactly one week after that gut-wrenching plea for help.
D'Lisa Kelley's body was discovered on the front porch of an abandoned home at 1215 Presidio Ave. in Oak Cliff on March 14, 2014.
"She was cut up. She was beaten badly. They crushed her jaw, they crushed her hand. She had gashes all in her face, all in her head. They beat her severely," Lasondra Kelley said.
They were haunting images her mother says she will never forget. What's more, D'Lisa Kelley was expecting her second child. She was eight weeks pregnant.
It's been three years since D'Lisa Kelley's body was dumped on that front porch, and her killer remains free.
Dallas police detectives have exhausted leads, interviewed persons of interest, including the driver of the Grand Marquis, but for now, police lack the evidence to move forward.
As police continue to seek answers, D'Lisa Kelley's family remembers the good times and remains hopeful for closure.
"We're going to get justice, we're going to find you, you can't hide forever and we will get justice. My grandson will get justice," Lasondra Kelley said.
Anyone with information about D'Lisa Kelley's murder case is asked to call Dallas police.
