CAHOKIA, Ill. — His family said behind Dexter Byrd's many pictures was an independent, hardworking young man with a great sense of humor.
"He was a nice, loving boy, teenager. He loved to be funny and joke around all the time. He just liked making everybody laugh," said Sharie Elliott about her nephew, Dexter Byrd.
Dexter Byrd was just 19 when he was shot and killed in front of his Cahokia home.
He graduated from Belleville West High School last year.
As a top member of the Brooklyn Bulls AAU Basketball team for five seasons, he dreamed of one day becoming a professional basketball player or coach.
"He had a good life ahead of him," said Schamekia Chamberlain, Dexter's mom.
Sadly, Tuesday night his young life ended suddenly and tragically.
"I came home, pulled up and he pulled up to help get groceries out the car," recalled Byrd's mother.
Within moments, Schamekia Chamberlain told detectives with the Major Case Squad of Metropolitan St. Louis several men rode by her home on Range Lane in Cahokia.
Byrd's family said the guys rode down St. Helena Street in a black Chrysler and once outside their home, a man, sitting in the back seat, fired several gunshots. Dexter's mom and 10-year-old sister were outside with him at the time.
"And they shot him while I was out here with him and they didn't care about my family," said Schamekia Chamberlain.
Dexter was shot twice in his abdomen, died at a St. Louis hospital.
"It's just so hard because he was my oldest boy. He didn't hang with anybody in this area. He worked at Hershey Corporation as an assembly line worker, he dressed nicely and he worked a lot. That was my son," said Chamberlain.
A young man full of so much promise is now gone.
Dexter's mom believes he was killed because "the suspects simply didn't like him and were jealous of him."
"That's been him his whole life. He liked to dress, liked to play basketball and he had a nice car, so he actually had a lot of people that disliked him for just being him and his sense of humor. It's not OK to kill somebody because you dislike them. It's not right. There is a better way of living. I want justice for my son and if that means they spend the rest of their lives in jail, then that's fine with me," said Byrd's hurting mom.
On Sunday, the Major Case Squad said in a news release, that it has "taken three persons of interest into custody and are actively looking for others. The Squad located these persons of interest on information obtained during the investigation. The three subjects, whose identities are not being released at this point, are being questioned concerning their knowledge or involvement in the death of Mr. Byrd."
