‘I couldn’t stop him from being killed’: Family mourns 18-year-old killed on Henson Drive

Rose Jones hadn’t seen her great-grandson, Tremaine Taylor, in two days.

With each passing hour, she became more concerned.

“He didn’t come home that Tuesday, because I had made up his bed and it still was made up,” she said Thursday, sitting on her front porch in a south Columbus neighborhood. “So, this morning when the man knocked on my door, I thought it was him coming. But it wasn’t him, it was the coroner saying he was shot.”

Jones, 77, told the story surrounded by her daughter, Iris Pyatt, who is Taylor’s grandmother, and a host of other relatives. The group included several of her grands and great-grands, all mourning the death of their loved one.

They said he was funny, kind and the type of person that would give them whatever he had. But he also liked to hang out in the streets with the wrong crowd. He was released from a juvenile detention center in April.

Pyatt, who lives in Atlanta, said she last talked to Taylor on Saturday after sending him some money. She had no idea it would be the last time.

“... I couldn’t stop him from being killed even if I was here because they say, ‘God’s got your day,’ ” she said. “Sunrise, sunset. That was his time to die.”

Taylor, 18, died Thursday morning from a gunshot wound, according to Muscogee County Coroner Buddy Bryan.

Columbus Police Department patrol units were dispatched to the 400 block of Henson Drive in reference to a person being shot at about 1:26 a.m., according to a a news release issued by the CPD.

Upon the officers’ arrival, they located Taylor suffering from a gunshot wound. He was transported to the Midtown Medical Center Emergency Room.

Bryan said he was dispatched to the emergency room at 4:20 a.m., and he pronounced Taylor dead of a gunshot wound.

The Homicide Unit responded to the scene and assumed the investigation, according to the CPD news release.

Bryan said the death marks the 26th homicide in Muscogee County this year. There were 26 total homicides in 2016.

Pyatt, 54, said Taylor was the son of her son Tremaine Pyatt, who is locked up at Macon State Prison.

“He’s locked up for something he ain’t did,” she said of Taylor’s father. “They said he murdered somebody, but he didn’t.”

She said her son and Taylor’s mother, Lanitha Taylor, had the boy when they were both 16.

Pyatt and Jones took Taylor in when his parents weren’t around to care for him, they said. Pyatt said she had just gotten out of prison for shoplifting.

“I left and went to prison for two years,” she said. “When I came back from prison, we got him and kept him with us. So we had him ever since he was 3 years old.”

She said he had some problems in Kindergarten and had to be put on Ritalin for hyper activity. But he was a loving child and got along with the rest of the family.

Pyatt moved to Atlanta when the boy was about 8 years old, and he remained in Jones’ custody.

The two women said Taylor’s mother has never really been a part of his life, but she has been in contact with the family after hearing of his death. The two families are trying to make plans for a funeral, but they must wait for the body to come back from Atlanta.

Jones, who worked about 35 years at a Columbus mill, said she has raised several grandchildren over the years. Taylor was the first great-grandchild to live with her. She continues to work to make ends meet, providing transportation for homebound patients.

She said once, when Taylor was younger, he joined a church and played drums. She thought he was going to continue, but he only stayed for about a month and half.

“He would do what I told him to do then, but he was a lot younger,” she said. “But after he got up in age, he was just a lot different.”

Pyatt said the last time she saw Taylor was June 19 after she got out of a halfway house. She was there after going back to jail for violating probation.

“When he first got out (of the juvenile detention center) he was doing good,” she said. “But a month or two after, he hung with the wrong crowd.”

“I don’t know if he was in a gang,” she said. “... I don’t know what happened. All I know is that he’s dead. That’s all I know.

“He wasn’t a violent person,” she said. “He liked money like everybody else liked money.”

Pyatt said the streets aren’t safe, and her grandson just got caught up in the wrong lifestyle.

“These young boys out here on drugs, they want money,” she said. “They want everything everybody else got, and all they gonna do is shoot. I stay in Atlanta, it be 10 to 12 killings every day in Atlanta.

“But down here in Columbus, I’ve been hearing about down here,” she said. “This young generation, they’re not playing. That’s all I can tell you.”

Jones said she’s tired of seeing so much crime and killing in the streets.

“Old as I am and all my grandchildren and stuff like that, young folk keep dying, and I’m still here,” she said. “I’m here for something. The Lord’s gonna keep me until he’s ready to take me, and nobody is going to take my life.”

This story was originally published August 31, 2017 at 8:53 PM with the headline "‘I couldn’t stop him from being killed’: Family mourns 18-year-old killed on Henson Drive."