'Say something': Family pleads for answers in Palm Bay shooting of 20-year-old
MELBOURNE — Sheena Collier spent Mother's Day looking over old photos of her 20-year-old son Tyrone Bursey as friends and family dropped by her home to offer comfort.
Just three days before, the mother of three stood along a road lit by red and blue police lights, staring past long ropes of crime scene tape where Palm Bay detectives confirmed Bursey had been shot and killed.
"I just wanted to stand by him, to let him know I was there," Collier said of the moment the mother of three learned that her only son had been gunned down along Washington Avenue, a Palm Bay neighborhood that straddles south Melbourne.
The deadly shooting was the county's 19th reported homicide since the beginning of the year. So far, no arrests have been announced in Bursey's shooting.
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The shooting was reported about 11 p.m. Thursday in the 2200 block of Washington Avenue. Officers found Bursey's body with multiple gunshot wounds at the scene but were unable to revive him, police reported. Crime scene agents secured the area and began taking photographs of the site as detectives talked with witnesses.
Collier said her son, who worked at a Burger King in West Melbourne at night and attended school during the day, had come home earlier Thursday night with his scooter before leaving again.
Collier said she was taking out the trash when she saw several patrol cars driving quickly through the area with lights and sirens. "I said, 'Let me call my son.' But he didn't answer the phone, and I'm steady calling," she said. "I got in the car and went to look for him. It was just a mother's intuition, I just felt something was wrong. I turned onto Washington and saw all of the crime scene tape."
Collier was told to wait as police continued to process the scene. She even drove to Holmes Regional Medical Center but could not find her son. She returned to the crime scene and was told to wait again by officers. Then detectives walked up about 2 a.m. "I talked to detectives and looked down at his notes and saw (my son's) name. I just broke down," she recalled, holding back tears.
Police continue to search for the shooter — and a motive — and ask the public to come forward with information in the case. "We are saddened by this loss of life and send our condolences to the family and friends of the victim," police later said in a statement posted to Facebook.
Collier and her two surviving children, Tyrone's twin sister and a younger sister, are mourning. Collier said that she had heard from a number of her son's friends and classmates as well as the principal of Palm Bay High School, and Bishop Jacquelyn Gordon of Shiloh Christian Center, co-organizer of the PUSH BACK Community Alliance, a coalition of congregations tackling violence and other issues.
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"He was very sweet and outgoing," Collier, whose family originally is from Detroit, said of her son.
Bursey's grandmother, Yolanda Collier Cooper, called on those with information in the case to come forward. "If you know something, say something. This too much, all of this senseless killing going on. No one should have to go through this," Cooper said of losing her grandchild.
"Tyrone was just your average young man. He loved life. It's senseless."
J.D. Gallop is a criminal justice/breaking news reporter at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Gallop at 321-917-4641 or jgallop@floridatoday.com. X, formerly known as Twitter: @JDGallop.
This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Mother pleads for answers in shooting death of son, 20
