Murder victim’s relatives: ‘Do not live and forget God’

RELATIVES of Tyrel Jones, 25, who was shot dead in Morvant on Sunday, are calling for youths to stay away from a life of crime, saying it is not worth their lives.

Relatives said Jones’s life took a turn for the worse when his mother died, and he embarked on a career of crime.

“You cannot live and forget God,” said one relative. “In fact you cannot live and make the gun your God, because the gun is nothing.”

Relatives told Newsday, despite their pleas for him to turn his life around, Jones continued down the wrong path until his death. They said he was trying to sell a cellphone to someone when he was killed.

“He was struggling with a lower and higher level of consciousness,” said one relative. “You could tell him what is right, but he can’t hear it.” Family members said yesterday, Jones – the second of three children, began “acting out” when his mother died of a heart attack five years ago.

“It hit him the hardest,” one said. “Even if you ask him if he needed help, he would say, ‘I good. I good. It’s allyuh who mad.’ It’s like something switched off when his mother died, and he never recovered.”

They said Jones, his two brothers and his mother had all lived together, but when she died, he moved out and began moving from place to place. They said he was a “hustler” who would do odd jobs wherever he lived.

On Sunday, Morvant police were told of a homicide at about 9 pm on Leotaud Street, Morvant. They found Jones dead in the road.