KANNAPOLIS — A memorial service Sunday at 4 p.m. at Baker’s Creek Park will celebrate the life of Donzel Ralph Phillips, 66, who was shot and killed in the early hours of the morning last June 4.

On Saturday, his sons, Randy and Richard Phillips, will distribute fliers about their father’s unsolved murder near the rest stop on Interstate 85 just north of U.S. 29 in Concord.

“We just want to stir someone to come forward with what they know,” says his older son, Randy.

Concord police have repeatedly asked anyone who knows anything about what happened to Phillips to let them know. But they still have no leads. Police have called in the State Bureau of Investigation and have offered a reward for information that would help solve the crime,

Someone shot the Kannapolis man in the abdomen. Police believe it happened in the restroom at the I-85 rest stop. Police believe Phillips left the rest stop, after being shot, in his black 1999 Chevrolet Monte Carlo, driving through a holly bush and a tree line. Holly branches were stuck under the car.

He drove to the intersection of Centergrove Road and South Cannon Boulevard, stopping right next to a Bi-Lo where he’d shopped earlier, and around 12:20 asked another motorist for help by first blowing his horn and then getting out of his car.

Phillips told the man he had been shot after refusing to give his wallet to a robber. Then he collapsed on the pavement. He died later that morning at NorthEast Medical Center.

Police believe the shooting occurred just after midnight. A doctor at NorthEast said Phillips would have been able to stay conscious for only about four minutes after being shot.

An anonymous caller told police he saw a car fitting the description of Phillips’ leaving the I-85 rest stop, prompting Kannapolis police to turn the investigation over to Concord.

And a janitor told police he saw what may have been evidence while cleaning the rest area’s bathroom. Police declined to say what the janitor saw. They searched the bathroom and all the trash in a trash bin but found no evidence.

The Rev. Greg Laskoskie of Grace Covenant in Huntersville will be in charge of Sunday’s memorial service, and the Rev. Ben Burgess of Liberty Baptist Church in Kannapolis and Concord Police Sgt. Wendell Rummage will speak.

Rummage will give an update on what is going on, “which is really nothing,” says Phillips’ daughter-in-law, Beth Phillips. “We have no leads,” she added.

That’s why the family will spend all day Saturday handing out fliers.

“We need to find the killer to have a little bit of closure in this family,” Beth Phillips says.

“I know there’s at least one person out there who has seen it,” Randy Phillips says. “Perhaps two. My understanding is that the rest stop was pretty busy, so someone had to see something.

“I’m real unclear if robbery was the motive or not. It’s all speculation. We’ve lived with it for the past year, and we couldn’t turn it loose.”

If you have information that might help police investigators, call the department at 704-920-5000 or Randy Phillips at 704-664-6435.

Contact Rose Post at 704-797-4251 or rpost@salisburypost.com .