Chervon Tanner feels like her heart has been torn into pieces.
The Birmingham mother spent the weekend worrying about her missing son, and then ended the weekend by learning that he had been murdered.
“It’s a nightmare,’’ Tanner said, “and I’m still asking someone to wake me up from it.”
“They took a piece of my heart,’’ she said. “My full circle is gone.”
Dontrell Gooden, 20, was last seen at about 11 p.m. on Friday. He had been staying with his sister.
She woke up the next morning and realized he’d not come home.
The family immediately launched a search for him.
“She called my middle son, and they went to the area where his phone last pinged and started searching,’’ Tanner said.
When they still couldn’t find him, they called Birmingham police. Officers on Saturday night issued a Critical Missing Alert for Gooden, saying they believed he was in danger.
The police launched their own search. The family continued theirs, and spread word of Gooden’s disappearance on social media.
About 7:30 p.m. on Sunday, officers looking for Gooden discovered him dead inside his sister’s vehicle in a wooded area in the Brummitt Heights neighborhood.
He had been shot.
The discovery was made on Spruce Avenue and Cunningham Street. That location was just a street over from where Gooden’s family had been searching for him.
Tanner said she believes her son was killed by someone he knew.
“He liked to help people, and he trusted too many people,’’ Tanner said.
“I think they killed him over a gun over a gun they wanted,’’ she said. “They could have just taken it from him, and he would still be here.”
Gooden, who had attended Tarrant High School, was the baby of Tanner’s family.
“We spoiled him because his Daddy died when he was 3 years old so all of us just spoiled him,’’ she said, “and considered him our baby.”
Gooden loved to make people laugh, she said.
“He liked to tickle you and play jokes on you,’’ Tanner said.
Gooden adored his 2-year-old twin nieces.
“They were his world, and he was their world,’’ his mother said. “I just broke down crying when one of them was calling his name last night.”
No arrests have been announced.
Tanner said she’d like to ask the suspect or suspects, “Why?”
“Why would you do him like that when you already knew he’d give you the shirt off his back,’’ she said. “Why would you do him like that over a raggedy gun?”
Tanner said she also wants them to know what they took from her.
“I can’t begin to tell you how much it’s hurt our family,’’ she said. “He was true friend to the end, and he died over it.”
She said she’s tired of the violence plaguing Birmingham.
“The violence needs to stop,’’ she said. “These young men are killing their whole generation.”
Anyone with information is asked to call homicide detectives at 205-254-1764 or Crime Stoppers at 205-254-7777.
