Photo: Contributed - Facebook

A photo from Tiffany's angel run held on March 30, 2014

She would never celebrate her 31st birthday, but Tiffany Goruk’s friends and family weren’t about to let the occasion slip by.

Last Sunday a memorial run was held at Knox Mountain to remember the mother of two who was murdered alongside her boyfriend Jeremy Snow in West Kelowna back in February of 2013.

Goruk’s step-mother Heather Rippel says this past year has been really hard and frustrating for the family.

“Nothing has been resolved,” she explains. “I guess we all think that when someone is caught and brought to justice it will be a little bit easier to move on.”

With no arrests made in the case the family is left to diffuse rumours as to why Goruk’s life was taken that fateful night.

“We take it day by day but it’s harder with the bad publicity of Jeremy,” says Rippel.

Snow spent time in a US jail for his role in a major cross-border drug smuggling operation where helicopters were used to fly marijuana across the border in exchange for cocaine and cash.

RCMP have made it known that the murder was not random.

However Rippel says Goruk and Snow had been off and on for several months, but that Goruk was close to ending the relationship.

“I think she was done with him but they just happened to be together (that night).”

Rippel admits the family didn’t know much about Snow, as they only met him once.

“She was still really close with her ex (husband Kevin Goruk). They hung out all the time and were amicable for the kids, “ she says. “He is taking it pretty hard, raising two kids on his own is a tough go and he misses her everyday.”

The family believes there was no reason why anyone would want to hurt or kill Goruk,  a former local business owner.

Goruk had apparently just sold her business, a tanning salon and was going back to school for an accounting program.

“She was an amazing girl and loved by so many, it is so unfortunate,” says her step-mother.

And despite having a history of liking bad boys, Rippel says that should not have cost Goruk her life.

“We just need to keep that bad spin off of who she was, because that is not who she was (sic).”