Quawan Charles, 15, who was last seen alive leaving his home in Baldwin, Louisiana, on Oct. 30, with an unidentified person, was found dead in a field in Loreauville, Louisiana, on Nov. 2 and his distraught family is searching for answers.
“I’ve been crying all day. I wake up in the middle of the night. I’m missing my son. I’m missing his smile. I’m missing his jokes,” his mother, Roxanne Nelson, told KATC.com.
The Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Office Patrol Division and the Bureau of Investigation claim to have located Quawan’s body on Nov. 3, at approximately 5:00 p.m.
According to his family, he “was last seen leaving his house with a friend and his friend’s mom,” KATC reports.
“I want the lady who came to get my son without my permission, his dad’s permission, to be held accountable,” Nelson said. “You cannot just take someone’s son, bring them to your house and not be held accountable. She took them to her house, he was alive and well when he was here, and now he is dead when he went to Loreauville to her house.”
“He has a big knot on his head, so it’s obvious someone hit him on the head with something” Nelson continued.
“He was found dead under mysterious circumstances, and we just want an honest and thorough investigation with the Iberia Parish Sheriff Department,” Quawan’s stepfather Jason Nelson said.
Social media has amplified calls of justice for Quawan, with many people pointing out the similarities between his visible injuries to those of Emmett Till.
On August 28, 1955 in Money, Mississippi, Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam hunted and kidnapped 14-year-old Emmett Till. The two white men beat him, gouged out his eye, shot him in the head, tied his body to a 70-lb cotton gin fan with barbed wire, then threw him into the Tallahatchie River after Carolyn Bryant Donham lied and said Emmett whistled at her and sexually harassed her.
An all-white, all-male jury acquitted Bryant and Milam; months later, the pair admitted to killing the child. Bryant Donham, now almost 90 years old, has never been charged with a crime.
Quawan’s family has accused the Baldwin Police Department of ignoring their concerns and refusing to investigate when they reported the teen missing on Oct. 30, the last day he was seen alive, Gary Chambers Jr., community activist and publisher of The Rouge Collection, reports. Chambers also shared an audio reportedly of Quawan’s mother speaking with an unidentified woman who alleged that she had details about Quawan’s disappearance. According to the woman, her son told her that the people last seen with Quawan were high on psychedelics and that when her son attempted to enter the car, they told him no because they had recently bleached it.
TRIGGER WARNING: Clicking this link will lead you to audio of the phone call. The thumbnail image shows Quawan Charles’ disfigured face, his deceased body in a body bag. If you proceed, please do so with caution and care.
The Baldwin Police Department has stated that it will not be opening an investigation into Quawan Charles’ death.
Autopsy results are pending and the investigation is ongoing.
Anyone with information about the disappearance and death of 15-year-old Quawan Charles is urged to contact Detective Jarred Spurlock of the Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Office, Bureau of Investigation at 337-369-3711.