BALCH SPRINGS, Texas — A teen's body was found outside of a Mesquite Independent School District elementary school in Balch Springs on Tuesday morning, police said.
Police initially said the victim was a man, but they later updated that to say it was a boy.
He was identified Wednesday as 16-year-old Lamarya Marquez Dewaine Sanders, according to the Dallas County Medical Examiner's Office.
According to the the Balch Springs Police Department, around 7:40 a.m. Tuesday, Oct. 17, officers responded to a grassy area near Gray Elementary School, near Pioneer and Elam roads in Balch Springs, which is south of Mesquite.
When emergency crews arrived, including officers, firefighters and medical personnel, the victim was found lying on the ground near the school building and was unresponsive, police said.
Police said life saving measures were performed, but the victim was pronounced dead at the scene.
The incident was not impacting anything at the school, and Mesquite ISD told WFAA that students were purposely kept in the dark. Classes continued as normally as possible.
Sanders' mom Ikingmula Finley is still in disbelief.
“We never thought that was our child sitting up at that school up there,” she said. "We heard the police, we heard the ambulance and all that stuff, but we didn't know that was our child.”
Now the mom of six now searching for answers about what happened to the quiet, homeschooled teen.
“He don't fool with nobody. He always in the house all the time. Or here at the shop, he worked for the people down the strip in the Chinese store and he would go take their boxes out, you know, and work on a daily basis,” Finley said..
She said Sanders had been busy this week helping her set up her shop’s annual haunted house.
But Monday night, Finley said he got out of his shell and went to hang at a neighbor’s house with other kids who live on their block. She thinks her son’s death is tied to something that happened there.
“They said the sister's boyfriend had went [and] got something for them and whatever, and they gave it to him and he took off running out under the garage, I don’t know,” she said.
WFAA’s Janel Forte asked if she knew what specifically he’d been given.
“We don't know. We don't know cause they say [he] went and ran out the garage,” she said.
Her gut says he was drugged.
“I called the police. I said, look, I went to the neighbor’s house, my son missing, and I asked him, I said, 'where is he at?' And nobody would tell me where my son’s at," said Finley.
She said she spent all night searching for him before the grim discovery.
“I drove around, I drove around, I drove around, drove around trying to find him,” she said.
Police are investigating - but initially said they don’t suspect foul play. The coroner is conducting an autopsy. As Finley awaits those results, the grief is unbearable for this heartbroken mom.
“We feel like we didn't... wasn't there for him when he needed us,” she said.
The investigation is ongoing. Balch Springs Police is asking anyone with information concerning the incident to call the department at 972-557-6020.