Four years ago today young Isaiah DeJohn Brooks was found shot in the face in the driveway at 2512 Machine St. in northeastern Winston-Salem.
About 50 people gathered yesterday at the Mount Sinai Full Gospel Deliverance Center on Manchester Street to honor the 13-year-old, who died that day on the way to the hospital. Participants in the vigil lit candles in Isaiah's memory amid prayers and songs.
"Everyone said he was a happy-go-lucky boy and had a sweet tooth," the Rev. Linda Browne said. "He played jokes on his family, and he had a big smile."
The vigil was staged by Vigil for Healing, an interfaith ministry formed in January 2006 with the goal of holding spiritual observances at every murder site in Forsyth County.
This is the second remembrance that the group has held for Isaiah. In March 2006, about 150 people gathered in a grass lot at the corner of 25th and Machine streets.
The audience for Isaiah's vigil last night included more than 20 members of his family and four Winston-Salem police officers. Isaiah was the youngest of eight children in his family.
The house where Isaiah was found on Feb. 9, 2006, was near his family's home. The house had been broken into and ransacked. After the shooting, police collected ammunition of various calibers from the house.
Before the vigil, Police Capt. David Clayton said that there are no leads or suspects in Isaiah's death.
Clayton, who oversees police investigations, said he hoped that Isaiah's vigil would help people who may know something about the shooting remember details about it, and give investigators information that would lead to an arrest.
"We are doing everything we can to solve this case," Clayton said. "But we need help. We know that the family is upset. We know that the community is upset. We need someone to come forward, so we can make an arrest and ease the family's pain."
Investigators have sent evidence about the case to the State Bureau of Investigation in Raleigh for analysis, Clayton said.
Isaiah, a student at East Forsyth Middle School in Kernersville, was a little brother in the Big Brothers/Big Sisters program in Forsyth County. His family has described him as a boy who loved professional wrestling, peanut-butter cups and waking up for school.
At the vigil, the Rev. Yvonne H. Hines, Mount Sinai's senior pastor, said that Isaiah's family would always remember him, and that people in the neighborhood where he was killed want to live in a safe place where they can worship and play. The site where Isaiah was shot is about one-fourth mile from the church.
"May this ground be purged of the blood that was shed," Hines said.
Since Isaiah died, 82 other people have been killed in Forsyth County, including 19 in 2009 and this year, Browne told the audience. During the vigil, a bell was rung for Isaiah and each victim in 2009 and this year.
After the service, Barbara Stephenson, Isaiah's mother, and Tawanda Fulwood, one of his sisters, said that police should have arrested someone for Isaiah's killing by now.
"Our family is hurting," Stephenson said. "I am willing to forgive, but not to forget. They took his life. My baby is gone."
Fulwood said that people in the neighborhood who know something about the killing should cooperate with police and "bring our family some closure."
Anyone with information about this case can call the Winston-Salem police at 336-726-2039.
jhinton@wsjournal.com
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