JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Three deaths of current students or graduates of Sandalwood High School over the past eight days have the community grieving.
Tyon Blair, 17, was found dead late Wednesday afternoon behind a home on Kusaie Drive, blocks from where he lived and about 2 miles from the high school.
A neighbor told News4Jax that the field behind the homes where the body is where teens hang out, and in her opinion, doing drugs.
Joseph Murray, a 2009 Sandalwood graduate who was a sergeant in the Marine Corps, died Monday afternoon when a military plane crashed in Mississippi.
Glen McNeil, 23, who played football at Sandalwood, was shot and killed while celebrating the Fourth of July at Jacksonville Beach.
"We just praying for him and his family," McNeil's aunt, Gloria Chaplin, said.
Chaplin, who helped raise McNeil, is helping prepare for his funeral, which is scheduled for 11 a.m. Saturday at Destination Church on Atlantic Boulevard.
She has also been keeping up on the news and is stunned about the recent deaths of people connected to Sandalwood.
"I’m like, what is it with Sandalwood? What’s going on?" Chaplin said Thursday. "I heard that (and) I said, 'Oh my God.'"
Police are still looking for whoever is responsible for the deaths of Blair and McNeil.
News4Jax crime analyst Gil Smith said police will look to see if there are any connection between them.