Maria Washington, an Italian immigrant, wants people to know that her son Georgio, who was gunned down on Kenwood Avenue Dec. 20, 2001, didn’t deserve to die, even though he sold drugs in his past.

“They just say, ‘Well, he chose that life, he got killed. So what?’ ” she says. “But God forgives for those mistakes.”

Georgio, 26, who Washington believes died because he turned his back on the drug game, worked three jobs and had a bright future.

“My son was a dreamer,” she says. “He wanted to be a legitimate businessman. He said, ‘Mom, I’m going to buy you the biggest house you ever saw, and I’m going to do it legitimately.’ But he got in with the wrong crowd. He tried to get out, and that’s when he got killed.”

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Washington, who met her husband, Clifford, while he was stationed with the U.S. military in Italy, said the pain she feels over her son’s killing is compounded by the fact that police have made no arrests in his case.

“I went into a state of anger after his death,” Washington says. “Nobody from the police department will call me. Nobody will give me any answers about my son’s murder. To this day, I spend my nights thinking about my son, thinking about the police not doing anything. I’m going to die not knowing who killed my son, and it’s not right.”

Clifford Washington, who served in the Vietnam War, says he knows what the police think of his son.

“They think, ‘He’s just another drug dealer,’ ” he says. “ ‘Let’s just forget about him.’ ”

But like so many other mothers whose sons’ lives have been stolen by killers in Baltimore, Maria Washington is still hoping against hope.

“It hurts when your child is killed,” she says. “But [you want police] to find the killer and put him behind bars. And then you’ll have some kind of closure, some kind of peace. You can say, ‘OK son. Now you can rest in peace. They found him, and they put him in jail.’ ”