JACKSON, MS (Mississippi News Now) -
The decomposing body of a teenager has been found and family members who are overcome with grief believe it is a 15-year-old who has been missing. Skeletal remains were discovered at 1604 Barrett Avenue behind an abandoned house shortly after 7:00 p.m. Monday. It did not take long for word to spread throughout the neighborhood where the missing teenager had grown up.
A teenage girl on the scene could not contain her grief.
"We grew up in this neighborhood that's why I don't understand how this could happen out here," she said.
Convinced the body just found on Barrett Avenue is her 15 year old brother, there was no consoling the young woman.
"I lost my brother, what else is going to happen," she cried.
Keisha Payne says her daughter saw buzzards in the area a few days ago. She is also convinced it is the missing teenager who had exchanged a pair of shoes with a friend.
"They traded shoes and the little boy had on his shoes, he had on the, my cousin had on his shoes. So I told him to go back there and look and see if these was the shoes my cousin had and he said yeah and that's how we knew it was him," said Payne.
Police say the body was so badly decomposed it was not possible to be sure of the sex or identity.
"We did get some information from the people in the neighborhood who say that a 15-year-old male subject was missing in the area," police spokesperson, Officer Colendula Green said.
Martha Robinson is the grandmother of the missing teenager who had attended Blackburn and Cardoza Middle Schools and would have been 9th grade at Jim Hill in the fall.
"All I know is my daughter called me and told me he was dead and that's the only thing that I know," Robinson said.
Hinds County Coroner Sharon Grisham-Stewart tells us an autopsy is scheduled for Tuesday. She says there was trauma to the body and the level of decomposition indicates the victim had been in the area for at least two weeks.
The Coroner also confirmed the missing teenager is identified as 15 year old Edward Evans. She says they will not be able to positively identify the body until the autopsy is completed. She also told us the body had a gunshot wound to the face.
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