Family members of a Detroit teenager found dead behind a Creston neighborhood home this weekend say he was lured there by friends mixed up in gang violence. News of the slaying apparently was broadcast on Facebook before anyone contacted the family of victim, said to be Terrance Stokes, 19. “His friends got him down here and set him up,” said cousin Roshanna Johnson, who, along with other immediate and extended family members, stopped by the house on Sunday where a man was found with a bullet in his head about 12:53 a.m. on Saturday. “His own family didn’t even know he was (in Grand Rapids),” she said. “We found out by ‘RIP Terrance Stokes’ on Facebook.” Police haven’t formally identified Stokes as the man found dead on the two-story wooden staircase behind 249 Travis Street NE on Saturday, about a block from Creston High School. Neighbors said residents there came home to find a man, identified by family as Stokes, slumped on the stairs and bleeding from a gunshot wound to the head. Shell casings were found in the adjoining driveway and backyard. Raelynn Smith, who lives next door, recalled hearing what sounded like six gunshots late Friday night, about an hour before finding the body. She wrote them off as fireworks, a sound that has become common under new relaxed state laws. Heidi Fenton | MLive.com Terrance Stokes was found dead on this staircase behind 249 Travis Street NE early Saturday. Related: Grand Rapids woman details finding fatally shot man on neighbor's staircase Police are investigating the death as a homicide but no new information was released on Sunday. No suspect information has been released. Stokes may have been in Grand Rapids on Friday without his family’s knowledge, but he was expected at some point, said mother, Lisa Johnson of Detroit. His sister recently graduated from Ottawa Hills High School, where Stokes also attended, and he was supposed to show up as a “surprise.” “The surprise was, he got killed,” she said, bitterly. Stokes also has a younger brother, age 8, who is “taking it really bad.” Johnson denies that her son was involved in a gang, but she alleges Stokes was killed by one of the Bemis Street Boys, a Southeast Side “blood” gang. She thinks he was lured away from Detroit by a girl in Grand Rapids and a friend who drove Stokes to West Michigan. Stokes had bounced between parents in either city for the last few years, she said. “He brought him to Grand Rapids to get killed,” she said. “I guess they was in a gang and some situation went wrong, or whatever. I don’t know. When my kids leave the house, I don’t know what they are doing.” Johnson found out about her son’s murder when family members who saw the Facebook postings waded through the confusion by reaching out on the telephone. She called the friend who she believes helped get her son killed and spoke to him. She had a few words for those involved: “All the real gang members are dead,” she said. “Ya’ll just some newcomers. Ya’ll don’t know nothing about the gang. They don’t know what’s true, what’s value.” The loss leaves an enormous hole, she said. “Life is too short and they took my son’s life,” she said. “I‘ll never hear him call me; never see him again, never hear his voice.” “They took everything from me. When they took my son, that was part of me.”
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