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A Forestville woman celebrated the life of her slain son Sunday, with a party for what would have been his 24th birthday.

About 25 friends and relatives gathered in a spot off of Marlboro Pike to remember James Harvey Bowie IV, who was shot six times and killed in a Suitland apartment building March 20, 2007.

Bowie's mother, Carolyn Terry, was joined Sunday in support by LaShonne Williams, who lives in Bowie and also lost her son, 16-year-old Courtney Lawrence Manning, to violence in 2007.

The mothers met through the county State's Attorney's Office shortly after their sons' deaths and found a support system in one another.

Now 19 months removed from the incidents, Williams and Bowie reach out to community members, speaking at funerals, high schools and recently at Patuxent Institution, a maximum-security correctional facility in Jessup, where inmates had an opportunity to ask the mothers questions.

One inmate had written an apologetic letter to the mother of a man he killed, Williams said, and the mother had responded asking him why he killed her son. The inmate asked Williams if he should reply to the letter because he thought the mother would be upset to learn some of the things her son had done.

Williams said speaking at the prison was tougher than she imagined because she is unsure if she can forgive her son's unknown killer.

Her son was shot Feb. 11, 2007 while sitting in his car on Woodyard Road after exiting Club Neon in Clinton, an under-21 venue, which closed shortly after his death.

"Life is not the same as it was," Williams said.

Suspects in Bowie's and Manning's murders have never been identified. Both women said they want justice but are unsure they want to know who killed their sons.

Terry said she has asked God to show mercy on her son's murderer.

"I don't want his mother to go through what I've gone through," she said. "Maybe God doesn't want me to know, it could be someone I know, someone he was friends with, someone who called me Mom."

While organizing a release of blue and white balloons Sunday, Terry spoke to Bowie's friends who had come to visit.

"Be careful who you call your friend… your brother," she said, adding that she wanted them all to continue celebrating her son's life in a "good way."

Terry said she knows her son was not always perfect, but he was respectful to his elders and had a strong relationship with God.

"He hung out on the streets and did the thing that the people in the streets did," she said.

Bowie was engaged, and the couple had a two-year old son and another child on the way. At the time of his death, he was turning his life around, taking night classes to earn his GED.

He had struggled with the idea to change his life, but it was something he was finally ready to do for his children.

"It's hard to break away from streets," Terry said.

Bowie's fiancé , who was home in their apartment and heard the gunshots and screams as Bowie exited the lobby door and was shot six times, did not attend the remembrance.

"It's been a lot rougher on her than me," Terry said. "Death tears a family apart."

The celebration ended with a chorus of "Happy Birthday" and a cake decorated with the Dallas Cowboys' logo, a favorite of Bowie's.

Terry and Williams said they will continue to raise awareness on behalf of their sons to stop the senseless crimes in their communities by speaking to students and reaching out to parents.