GARLAND, Texas — Erica Williams is numb. Sleep since Wednesday has been all but impossible, the day they told her that her 15-year-old son was killed.
"Life was good before Dec. 6. So I'm just trying to hang in there and get things done," she said.
Her son, Russell Deangelo Jefferson, was shot and killed Wednesday evening just a block from their home in Garland. Police say the teen met someone at an alley entrance at the 3900 block of Roanoke Drive. Witnesses say they heard three shots and then a car speed away. Russell Jefferson was shot three times in the face and chest.
"I'm just existing at this moment and it hurts. It hurts to breathe," Williams said on Friday morning. "My baby is gone and I'm trying to find ways to go on, because I don't know how."
"It's difficult to understand sometimes what leads a young person to do something like this," Garland Police spokesperson Lt. Richard Maldonado told WFAA.
Police's initial investigation led to 18-year-old Cesar Rocha who agreed to go the the police department to be interviewed. The interview ended with Rocha under arrest on suspicion of murder and held on a $1 million bond.
A grand jury declined to indict Rocha Jan. 11.
In an arrest affidavit obtained by WFAA, Garland Police believe the 15-year-old arranged to meet Rocha to make a drug buy. A witness told police "he was on the phone with the victim when he was attempting to purchase narcotics and stated that he heard the victim ask 'how much' and then he heard shots."
Phone evidence led police to an Instagram account for Cesar Rocha who when questioned claimed that Jefferson pulled a gun on him first and "pointed it at his head."
Rocha told police that he "ducked his head, turned, and fired three to four shots at the victim." Jefferson was shot in the right upper arm, neck, chest, and back. A juvenile witness also told police that Jefferson had asked them to record the encounter on Facetime and that he planned to rob the person who showed up to sell him narcotics.
According to the affidavit, Rocha, who says his 16-year-old girlfriend and a 3-year-old nephew were in his car with him, drove away and tossed his gun into the Trinity River. The affidavit further states that he confessed to his own mother what happened and she encouraged him to turn himself in.
"I feel like I was robbed. My son's only 15. I will never seem him graduate, get married," said Williams, who says her son was a star football player at South Garland High School. She said he dreamed of making it to the NFL and buying his mom a house someday.
"He was so smart," she said. "He had great potential to be something great in this world. And I'm not even saying that just because he's my son."
A son she and her family will hold a community vigil for Friday night at 7 p.m. at the shooting scene: a son she is now preparing to bury next week.
"I hate that his life was cut short. I probably will never be the same," said Williams.
As of Friday afternoon, Rocha was still in Garland Police custody and was due to be transported to the Dallas County jail.