INDIANAPOLIS (WTHR) -A west side shooting death leaves lives upended, a family torn, a promising college football career in the dust.
Brother loses brother, mother loses son. Now a cousin wants the killers found.
Ashley Farris says someone must talk. "These people ended somebody's life... for no reason."
She pleads with anyone to come forward if they know who killed Dijon Anderson, 18. Police have released security camera photos of two persons of interest in the murder of her cousin, a standout Warren Central football star. He was shot on May 6. He died Tuesday.
Anderson was one of three teens shot that night. A 17-year-old died at the scene. Anderson spent two weeks in the hospital before his death. Another friend and football player suffered minor injuries.
"I don't think that it's really registered that he is not going to be here but I will miss him entirely," Farris said. "I'll miss him at Thanksgiving. I'm going to miss him so much."
"I'm just going to miss his personality," said Jalen Frazier, the victim's 14-year-old brother. "How funny he was. He used to make everybody laugh. Every time he stepped into a room. He put a smile on everybody's face."
Frazier loses more than an older brother.
"He was like my role model, basically."
He says big brother Dijon "used to keep my head up all the time. When stuff was negative he just tried to bring me up. Like when my granny died he lifted me up, just by being him or just being around."
"He did something new every game, basically." I would just turn up every time in the stands," said Frazier.
He loved watching his brother on the football field. Dijon would have left for Southern Illinois University in just over a week. He was that schools much sought-after recruit, and had NFL dreams.
"He was courageous," Farris said. "He was fun to watch. He would do things and you would be like 'oh god Dijon did you just really hit him like that'. He was just an amazing athlete."
"He was excited to be playing. He was talking about getting interceptions how he was going to shut the quarterback down and all that," Frazier added.
"He was one of those athletes you just want to watch," said Farris." And I'm sure that's what he's doing right now. Like he's a part of the best team everybody's trying to be a part of."
Farris summed up Dijon's approach to the game.
"So much love. He was excited about being able to go to school. Like when he saw me graduate I asked him 'are you going to go to college Dijon?'. He said 'yeah I'm going to play football in college'. He was just always wanting to play football, always wanting to be better. He wanted to go to the NFL. He always wanted to be the best that he could be. And he was good at it. He was just a good person to be around. You would just want to hug him and say 'I love you so much Dijon'. He was just a good person."
She says he had love for the game and his family. Some of his last photos of senior pictures taken on the canal downtown. Dijon and Jalen with their mother Christa Frazier.
"He loved his brother and mother so much," Farris said.
