Click here for updates on this story
Cincinnati, OH (WLWT ) — The weekend killing of a high school athlete has left the Princeton community shattered.
It happened Saturday evening along a residential street in Lincoln Heights.
The victim’s family is trying to understand the way the tragic circumstances unfolded.
Both the victim and the accused have had close ties to Vikings Country. The victim, Melvin Dean, 16, was a junior on Princeton High School’s football team.
Roosevelt Collier, 21, who went to school there, is currently being held as a grand jury considers the evidence in the homicide.
The motive for the shooting is a mystery to Dean’s family.
Investigators tell us Dean and Collier knew each other and had some mutual friends. Four of them were inside a Chevrolet Suburban Saturday night.
Dean, two cousins and Collier, according to Dean’s aunt, Shaeena Dean, who told us her nephew was simply hanging out.
“We heard the two gunshots and we ran out. My brother, which is Melvin’s father, seeing him running off away from the scene. He had said he didn’t come to rob him but he wanted to kill somebody or somethin’ of that nature. And he started shootin’. I don’t know what the issue was. He just flipped and said he came to kill and started shootin’.”
Collier turned himself in over the weekend and was arraigned Monday morning on bond of $1 million.
Dean’s grandmother described how her grandson would make it a point to come around every day.
“Didn’t have a bad day,” related Myrtle Dean. “And every place he went he tried to make it fun. People laughin’ and stuff.”
She said he was well-liked.
“And we loved having him around and he was just fun to be around. And he started out little and short, whatever. And then he sprouted up, started gettin’ big and started playin’ sports.”
His father said Dean played baseball, basketball and ran track. But football was his favorite.
According to family members, he was looking forward to his senior year at Princeton.
Now his loved ones are planning a funeral instead of a 17th birthday party.
“We’re holding it together, the grandmother said as she sat at her kitchen table.
“It’s going to be hard, but we’ll get through it.”
Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.
