‘It still seems unreal.’ Mother of murdered Columbus 14-year-old shares what she knows
Two days after she was notified her 14-year-old son was murdered, Courtney McGhee remains in a struggle to accept and understand.
“I still can’t believe it,” she told the Ledger-Enquirer on Wednesday. “It still seems unreal.”
Casadarius McGhee, a freshman at Hardaway High School, was found unresponsive Monday morning near the pathway between Ninth Street and the Rivers Homes public housing complex in midtown Columbus, according to the Columbus Police Department’s news release.
Police were called to the 1000 block of Adair Avenue at 9:33 a.m. EMS couldn’t resuscitate Casadarius, and deputy Muscogee County coroner Dustin Harrelson pronounced him dead at 10:11 a.m., the news release says.
Casadarius was found with multiple gunshot wounds in a wooded area, coroner Buddy Bryan told the Ledger-Enquirer.
McGhee said she last saw Casadarius around 10:30 p.m. Sunday, when he left their home in the Warren Williams public housing complex — approximately a half mile from where his body was found — to visit a friend.
“He never came back,” she said.
Casadarius was the oldest of McGhee’s four children. She is a single mother and unemployed due to disability.
“He was an outgoing child,” she said. “He didn’t like to stay in the house.”
McGhee started to worry when Casadarius hadn’t returned home by the time she went to bed Sunday night.
“He normally don’t do this,” she said. “… He usually calls me or sends me a text or something.”
Monday morning, Casadarius still was missing. Two detectives visited McGhee’s home. They asked for a photo of Casadarius and access to his Facebook and Instagram pages.
“They didn’t tell me why they were there,” she said. “I don’t know how they got my address.”
After the detectives left, McGhee called the police department to make a missing person report.
Later that morning, when she returned home from an errand, the coroner and a police officer arrived.
“They asked me if I was his mother,” she said.
McGhee identified Casadarius in the photos from the crime scene she was shown, including a scar on his left arm.
“They said he was shot multiple times,” she said.
McGhee didn’t have words to describe what she felt and though at that moment.
“I ain’t never lost no child,” she said. “This is my first, so I really don’t know.”
McGhee said she also doesn’t know who would have wanted to harm Casadarius. To her knowledge, she said, he wasn’t a gang member, didn’t have any weapons, wasn’t threatened and wasn’t involved in crime or mischief.
But she does know Casadarius was a good student, liked to play pickup basketball, to draw and to sing and write rap songs, McGhee said.
He previously attended Brewer Elementary School, Rothschild Leadership Academy and Double Churches Middle School.
His goal was to serve in the U.S. Army and buy her a “big house” one day, McGhee said. Now, she is left with memories of Casadarius being a happy child who made her proud “because my son made it to the ninth grade and that he wanted to finish school.”
Funeral arrangements haven’t been set.
CPD wants anyone with information about this case to contact Cpl. C. Edenfield at 706-225-4344 or cedenfield@columbusga.org. Information can be submitted anonymously via the cityprotect.com website or by texting VACS plus your message to 274637 (CRIMES).
