FERGUSON, Mo. — Just up the road from the memorial of stuffed animals and candles that has become a place of pilgrimage and protest over the shooting death of Michael Brown, there is an empty parking lot where another young black man was killed last week on the night this city erupted in rage. 
 
 There are no rallies or news cameras there, no signs or ribbons to mark the spot where, the police say, Deandre Joshua, 20, was shot once in the head and then set on fire inside his car. He was the only person killed during the fires, looting and riots that shook the city after a grand jury declined to indict a white police officer in Mr. Brown’s killing. But in the days since, Mr. Joshua’s death has largely become a footnote to Ferguson’s story — an open homicide case and a bitter mystery for his family. 
 
 “The unknown is what scares me,” his mother, Maria, 39, said in an interview at her home in nearby University City, where her son and his identical twin brother, Dont’A (Don-TAY), shared the basement. “I don’t know what happened to him.” 
 
 The police have offered few details about the killing. Chief Jon Belmar of the St. Louis County Police suggested last week that there could be “a nexus” between the broader unrest and Mr. Joshua’s death, but a police spokesman said it remained unclear whether there was any direct link. The police have not named any suspects, and have said it was unclear precisely when Mr. Joshua was killed or why his body was burned. 

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– The morning after the grand jury's decision in the Michael Brown case, the body of a young black male was discovered in a burned white Pontiac. The car was parked in the lot of an apartment complex not far from the spot where Brown was killed. The dead man inside was the only one to lose his life during the riots that swept the city in the wake of the decision. But for all the attention Brown's death has attracted, the death of Deandre Joshua, 20, has garnered little. The New York Times, which speaks to his family, describes it as a "footnote to Ferguson's story," and a "bitter mystery" for those who loved him. His family tells the Times that Joshua wasn't involved in any of the marches or protests that followed after Brown's death, and dispels the rumors that he was an unnamed grand jury witness. He did have one link to the case, though: He and twin brother Dont'A were childhood friends with Dorian Johnson, the man who was walking with Brown when Officer Darren Wilson stopped them. A former girlfriend places him with her, at a salon near St. Louis, when news of Brown's death broke. Police have said nothing about possible suspects (his family knows of no enemies) or motives. What they have revealed are some graphic details: The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that Joshua's body had been doused with accelerant in an attempt to light him on fire; his arm, fingers, and legs were burned, and the New York Daily News notes the fire was likely extinguished on its own. His car was parked in the Northwinds Apartments lot, but his family says that he had left his family home around 2am to go visit a new girlfriend who didn't live in those apartments.