Daryl Maurice Jones and Lee Earl Moss spent every weekend hanging out in the back yard, visiting, frying up fish and chicken, and loving on the kids in the close-knit family.

They’d done it for years outside the family residence in the 1700 block of 48th Street in Ensley and they loved it.

“They would sit there to 11 p.m., 12 a.m., 1 a.m., 2 a.m. and they would even sometimes fall asleep in that yard,’’ said Fannie Dowdell, whose grandmother was Moss’s longtime partner.

“No one ever came out there and bothered them.”

That all changed about 11:15 p.m. Saturday when Birmingham police say someone opened fire on Jones, 62, and Ross, 71. When the shooting ended, Jones and Ross were rushed to UAB Hospital.

Jones was pronounced dead at 11:57 p.m. Saturday. Ross was pronounced dead 12:42 a.m. Saturday.

“This right here cuts our family deep,’’ Dowdell said.

Officer Truman Fitzgerald said the city’s gunfire detection system – Shot Spotter – alerted West Precinct officer to multiple shots fired. While en route, they were alerted to two people shot.

“Both males were just outside enjoying the night when an unknown suspect opened fire on them,’’ Fitzgerald said.

At least 10 shots were fired.

It was an extremely emotional scene when at least two dozen family members and friends learned that the victims had died. Paramedics had to be called to treat at least one person.

“Everybody’s emotional, just trying to figure out what’s going on,’’ Fitzgerald said Saturday night.

“Everybody’s trying to figure out why somebody would want to hurt these two men.”

Police on Monday said no arrests have been made.

Dowdell said Ross had been the rock of their family for years.

“He held the family down,’’ she said.

Ross and Dowdell’s grandmother had custody of, and were raising, a young family member.

“That was his pride and joy,’’ she said. “He was the one getting up and taking her to school.”

And, at 71, he was still working part time in the janitorial field.

Jones, Dowdell said, took care of her son Monday through Friday while she worked. Both loved children and were amazing caretakers.

She said both were funny and outgoing, and loved to cook.

“Mr. Lee would be cooking, and Daryl, he was hearing impaired, but he could read lips, would be sitting down and people would be telling him to get up and help and he’d be like, ‘I ain’t fixing to get up,’ but when they weren’t doing it right, he’d be the one to start saying how somebody ain’t doing it right,’’ Dowdell said with a laugh.

Dowdell said usually they had a third friend out there with them.

“It would have been three homicides because they have another friend that was out there with them right before it happened, but he had left and went home,’’ she said.

Dowdell said the family wants to know who killed them, and why.

“They took something so valuable, so precious, that had so many years to live, from us,’’ she said. “Over something that had nothing to do with them.”

“I pray that no other family has to death with what we are dealing with,’’ she said. “That was our grandaddy and our uncle. They didn’t deserve this.”

Anyone with information is asked to call Birmingham homicide detectives at 205-254-1764 or Crime Stoppers at 205-254-7777.