Why a child's murder which shocked Sheffield has remained unsolved for 15 years

But 15 years later, Jonathan Matondo’s murder remains unsolved.

Arrests were made and one man stood trial twice for the killing but walked from court a free man.

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Detectives at the time of the shooting said they always believed the gunman responsible did not act alone and vowed to continue investigating the gun attack and ‘relentlessly pursue’ all those involved.

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To date, nobody is behind bars for the killing.

Jonathan was 16 when he was assassinated on the Nottingham Cliff recreation ground in Burngreave, with a ‘postcode gang’ war deemed to be the motive.

The teenager moved to Sheffield when he was six years old to escape a deadly civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

But ironically, Jonathan was shot in his head in an attack which sent shockwaves across Sheffield – the place where he was supposed to have been safe.

Jonathan had become embroiled with the city’s gang culture, was known on the streets as ‘Venemous’ and had been known to carry a blade and a gun.

Detectives discovered that Jonathan had become embroiled in the S3 gang, which operated in Burngreave and Pitsmoor at that time and was at war with the S4 gang.

Detectives believe the teen was targeted in retaliation for a shooting at a house belonging to relatives of an S4 member the night before.

That shooting was said to have been “a strike at the very heart of the S4” and Jonathan was hunted down the next day.

There was a failed attempt on Jonathan's life a few hours before he was killed, when shots were fired at him while he visited a friend's flat.

But he was finally assassinated when he was shot in his head from a distance of around 60ft by a gun with a red laser device attached to pinpoint the target.

The same gun used to kill Jonathan had been used to fire at another S3 member's home two months earlier.

During the trials of the man accused of the murder, detectives revealed the S3 and S4 gangs had been responsible for a series gun attacks and stabbings.

In the two years before Jonathan’s murder, police compiled a dossier of 38 incidents linked to the gangs.

They said Jonathan was ‘targeted and ruthlessly killed’ in an ‘organised and planned attack’.

The murder is one of a number of unsolved cases on South Yorkshire Police’s books, with the force having a specialist review team which regularly re-examines historic killings to look for potential new leads.

A witness described seeing five hooded males chasing Jonathan on the night he was gunned down.Jonathan had once dreamed of becoming a preacher and was a regular church-goer before becoming involved in gangs.

His uncle Armand Vibila said his nephew had been “too young to die”.

“He was such a good boy, so funny, this should not happen to our community,” he said at the time.