Family members have identified body of 13-year-old teen found behind some townhomes in Atlanta Woods

A teen left his home at 2 o’clock in the morning, never to be seen alive again.

Virginia Montgomery was walking her child home from school through Lithonia Community Park when they spotted a blue tarp.

“I saw it. I said, ‘Wait a minute. That looks like somebody laying there,’” Montgomery said. “Whoever did this, y’all wrong.”

DeKalb County police responded to the townhome community on Parkway Trial shortly before 4:30 p.m. Monday.

Moments later, the area was covered in crime tape, with investigators and eventually the medical examiner walking in and out of the brush line behind the townhomes.

Soon, the family of Jamiren Crosby showed up.

Atlanta, Georgia. – On Monday the family said people in the community told them he had been killed before his body was discovered.

Crosby’s grandmother, who said she hadn’t seen him since last week, but that people who knew Crosby told the family that someone had killed him and left him in Lithonia Park.

The family was in the park Monday when the body was recovered.

“We went out looking for him. Me and his auntie right here, we were out searching for like six hours,” Sunni Broughton said. “Somebody called us and said Jamerin was dead and told us where he was, so we was on the other side of the park.”

THE POLICE ARRIVE

DeKalb County police are investigating after a boy’s body was found in the woods at a park behind a subdivision in Lithonia.

According to police, officers were called around 4:20 p.m. to the 2600 block of Parkway Trail Monday where they discovered the body of a male juvenile in the wood line. The homes in that area butt up against Lithonia Park.

The child’s age and identity have not yet been officially released, and police have not commented on the specifics about his death.

FOX 5 spoke with a woman who identified the boy as her son, 13-year-old Jamiren Crosby. Chanell Crosby says her son disappeared early Saturday and that she had not seen him since.

“He was my helper, he’d help me with my little daughter and my youngest son,” Crosby told FOX 5. “He was a real person. All he wanted was real around him—real love–wanted to be loved by his family.”

Jamiren’s mother says her son was a straight “A” student in the 8th grade at DeKalb Alternative School. He had just joined ATL Elite Football. She says he left home with some friends around 2 a.m. Saturday. That was the last time she saw him alive.

Investigators say they are still working to determine the cause of death.