Nearly every day, Tamara Tarpinian-Jachym still does that motherly thing and texts her youngest son, Eric M. Tarpinian-Jachym, with the latest on his two siblings, his father, and life in Massachusetts.

“I text his phone almost every day, like how my day’s going and how everybody’s doing, and how I miss him,” she said in an interview Tuesday. “It’s like I’m journaling to him.”

Since June 30, her heartbroken messages have gone unanswered. That’s when the rising senior at the University of Massachusetts was fatally shot in Washington, D.C., as he went to grab a late-night snack after a long day at the US Capitol, where he was interning for a Kansas congressman. He was 21.

“My son was murdered,” his mother said. “I can never see him again. I can never talk to him again. I just stare at

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