JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Known to many as “Coby,” family members of 17-year-old Jacoby Wright, who was found dead on a dirt road, are sharing their memories Tuesday night.
It just doesn’t seem real or fair to the family of Wright said a family member who did not want to be named.
“It really hasn’t hit me yet. I’ve cried but I don’t believe t yet still,” said the anonymous family member.
Just days after the body of the teenager was found along a dirt road, family members are trying their best to remember the good times.
“He just liked having fun. He always had a smile on his face. He was the life of the party. He and his friends use to always wrestle all the time and it always was Coby in the mix of it all,” the family member said.
The family member also shared the teen loved football, was well known within his basketball team and was only months away from entering the military.
Police are investigating to find out who killed Wright. His family said they have many questions, but they just want the killer to turn himself in.
A neighbor of a teenager found dead said she thought something suspicious was happening on her street Saturday night.
Wright was found dead Sunday at around 3:30 a.m. at the dead end of Alan Avenue on a dirt road next to overgrown shrubbery, by a Florida Highway Patrol.
Brenda Evans, an Alan Avenue resident said she walks her dog along this wooded trail every day, but Saturday night was different.
“I saw a red, smaller SUV, like a flat red color and a white car behind the red vehicle,” Evans said. “They just came up to the driveway, turned around and when they came out they just stopped right here before these mailboxes and I just stayed there for a period of time.”
Evans also told police that night the dogs were barking a lot, but she thought it was just normal.
“So the police officer had come up and asked if we had heard anything or seen anything and that's when I told him that I heard some shots,” Evans said. “It's a little unnerving. Quite unnerving because like I said we don't have any type of thing like that happen in our neighborhood.”
Neighbors are uneasy that the person responsible is still out there at large.
“That’s terrible,” Evans said. “Because that could happen again.”
Members of his family described Wright as a boy who loved basketball and was a very good kid.
The death case is being treated as a homicide and foul play is suspected, police said.
Please contact JSO Homicide at 904-630-0500 or Crime Stoppers at 1-866-845-TIPS if you have any information about this case.