Days after Katherine Quinn was acquitted in the murder of 16-year-old Matthew Martins, outraged activists took to the streets to call for changes to the criminal justice system.

Martins was brutally beaten and slashed with a broken beer bottle outside the Surrey Central SkyTrain Station in July 2005. Quinn was convicted of the killing in 2007 with her boyfriend Robert Forslund, but appealed.

In her retrial, several key witnesses testified that Quinn ordered her boyfriend Robert Forslund to kill Martins, but B.C. Supreme Court Justice Wendy Baker found their accounts unreliable. Quinn was found not guilty.

Martins' mother Sandra Martins-Toner was devastated by the verdict. "Justice has not been done. Justice has failed my child, and it will fail many more children," she said outside the courthouse.

On Sunday, supporters gathered at the site of Martins' tragic death to protest the decision. Martins' aunt Tina said the pain of what happened to her family has not diminished over the years, and that Quinn's acquittal had tarnished her faith in the system.

"Does any Canadian think this is right, knowing the full story? I don't think so," she said. "Even if we got the right verdict this time it probably would have been appealed again and the process doesn't work."

Participants said they weren't just fighting for Martins, but for future victims as well. In the past week, violence across B.C. took at least two young lives, including 16-year-old Ashlee Hyatt's. She died Wednesday after being slashed with an exacto knife at a house party in Peachland.

The next day, 15-year-old Justin Wendland was stabbed to death in Victoria. A suspect has been arrested and charged in both cases, but victims rights advocate Melanie Terrett says the victims' families still have a long and painful road ahead.

"I know the system that they have to crawl through now and the re-victimization and the pain," she said.

The protesters' message to the courts is a simple one: fix the process and ensure justice can be delivered. "They need to sit down with the victims," Martins said. "They need to hear what they have to say and changes need to be made."

With a report from CTV British Columbia's Stephen Smart