Richard Mebane Jr., 17, on Tuesday was identified as the person whose body was found Sept. 1 in back of a stolen Dodge Magnum parked behind an apartment building on Madison Avenue in Cincinnati. Four days later, his mother, Nedra Byrd-Evans, held a vigil outside her home at the Triangle View Apartments in Dayton in honor of her son.
Investigators had to use dental records to identify the 17-year-old because Cincinnati police said his body had been in the car at least two weeks before he was found shot to death, Byrd said. His death is ruled a homicide, police said. The teen’s mother said she knew something bad had happened to him even before police called her.
“I had this uneasy feeling about 4 a.m. Wednesday morning, I woke up in (Cincinnati) Children’s Hospital (Medical Center) sick to my stomach,” she said. Later in the day, while she was waiting for her 10-year-old daughter to get out of surgery, a Cincinnati police detective called her. He said, “‘Ms. Byrd, are you still at Children’s Medical?’ And I said ‘yes sir.’ He said, ‘well I’m on my way.’ And I said, ‘please no.’” When he arrived, the detective told her, “‘there’s no easy way to tell you … but that’s your son,’” Byrd said.
The mother of 10 admits her son, the third of her children, got into a lot of trouble and had run away from home. But she said he was a good kid at heart and will always be her baby. Now, all she wants is to see his body before he is cremated.
“I’ve never not had all my children. So to subtract him out of the equation of my entire life is something I have to live with. And just to know that I was able to look at him just one more time is going to help me,” she said.
Cincinnati detectives are working closely with Dayton police to find out what happened to Mebane, she said.