DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. — A DeKalb County family is recalling the terrifying moments they searched for a 17-year-old boy only to find him dead.
Jalen Brown’s body was found on Hillandale Drive near Panola Road last week.
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Channel 2′s Tyisha Fernandes spoke with Brown’s mother, who says she tracked her son’s phone and watched the battery slowly die while they searched for him.
“He died scared and alone because of your actions. Like you ran my baby down on the street and didn’t even stop to see if he was ok,” Natassia Brown said.
The family believes he was either on his way to work or coming back home when he was hit.
“I don’t have a lot of words for them. I just don’t understand how you can hit someone, anyone, not knowing if it was a kid or an adult. He’s a child, but I don’t understand how you can hit someone and leave them with no help or anything in the middle of the night,” Natassia Brown said.
She says she last saw her son alive on Saturday when he left for work.
When he didn’t answer his phone, she tracked it and could see it was still powered on, but the battery slowly began to die.
“To actually sit and watch it go down from 51% and just go down throughout the day to empty, our hearts became empty because we knew that was a direct connection to hope ‚” Jalen Brown’s grandmother, Tanya Taylor, described.
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When he didn’t show up for work the next day, the family says they started losing hope.
They reported him missing on Monday and two days later, his body was found in the woods.
“A few moments in time have changed the entire family. Somebody out there knows what happened. There has to be a very unsettling feeling in somebody,” aunt La-Detra White said.
His mom says she just wants justice for her son.
“I just want justice for Jalen. That was my son, my firstborn son. And even if it wasn’t my son, he’s someone’s child, someone’s loved one and you just killed them, left them on the side of the road like nothing,” Natassia Brown said.
Fernandes asked police for a description of the car that hit Jalen Brown, but there was not one available.
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