The murders of two Birmingham brothers in the same neighborhood a year apart remain unsolved, and police are asking for the public’s help in bringing the killers to justice.

Erskin Irvin Jr., 37, was shot to death May 11, 2023, when gunmen opened fire on him in the 1400 block of 33rd Street North. When the ambush shooting stopped, the father of two sons had been hit more than 20 times.

One year and 18 days later, on May 29, 2024, 37-year-old Valdez Stephenson, was found dead in the 3200 block of 13th Avenue North. He, too, had been shot multiple times.

“My heart is tore up,’’ Janice Irvin, the victims’ mother, previously told AL.com. “It was devastating with one and I know I birthed that one, but to lose two?”

“I didn’t birth Valdez, but he was just like a birth child,’’ she said. “I didn’t love one no more than the other. My heart is aching. It feels like somebody is stepping on it.”

In Stephenson’s 2024 death, North Precinct officers responded about 10:10 p.m. that Wednesday to calls of shots fired.

Once in the neighborhood, police found multiple shell casings in the area. They continued to investigate, and a short time later found Stephenson unresponsive in the yard of a home.

Birmingham Fire and Rescue Service pronounced him dead on the scene at 10:27 p.m.

Irvin described Stephenson as quiet, low key.

“He wasn’t a real people person, crowd person,’’ she said. “He liked to be by himself a lot. He loved his (13-year-old) son a lot.”

Irvin was a truck driver and had gotten off work and been home only about an hour. He was at the home he shared with his mother on 33rd Street North.

Home security camera footage showed what happened next.

“You can watch him leaving out of the house,’’ sister Tiffany Irvin previously told AL.com. “He was telling my aunt bye and as he walked down the steps and got in his car, they ran from darkness across the street and shot up his car.”

She said the video showed three masked gunmen carrying out the ambush, standing at his car and unleashing more than 35 rounds.

Family members heard the shots and ran outside.

“You wouldn’t shoot and kill an animal the way they did my brother and did it right in front of our mother’s home,’’ Tiffany Irvin said in an earlier interview. “What could he have possibly done that was so bad?”

“My family hasn’t been the same since this tragedy happened,’’ she said.

The brothers were close, their grieving mother said.

“They were two different people,” she said. “Erskin was the party one, liked to have fun. Valdez was the laid back one.”

Irvin has said she has no idea who killed either of her sons, or why, or if the same gunmen are responsible for both.

“Whoever did it, y’all got parents, I know you got somebody, family that knows what y’all are out here doing,” Irvin said. “They’re just as wrong as you are.”

Irvin has said she needs an arrest.

“I think I’d be a little more at ease than I am now,’’ she said, “but I’ll never be the same.”

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