A DeKalb County woman said she won’t rest until the people who shot and killed her son are held accountable.
"I won't stop until I do get full justice for my family, for my son," T.J. Riley said in her first interview since intruders gunned down 24-year-old Jeremy Riley during a March 21 home invasion.
Riley told Channel 2 Action News that her son was close to graduating from Georgia State University when his life was taken. They had been saving money to buy a car for the car business they planned to start, the news station reported.
Riley said she believes that’s why three masked men stormed into her unit at the Abbey Road Condominiums, tried to rob her and ultimately shot her son to death.
Two men — Jeremy Brown and Kadar Whitfield — were previously arrested in connection with the deadly shooting. However, a third man who ran away has still not been located. Details about that suspect have not been released.
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The whole family was inside the Abbeywood Drive residence when the masked men burst inside to rob her.
"They said, ‘Lay down.' He laid down. They slaughtered him like a pig in my face," Riley told Channel 2.
Her son was shielding his three siblings when he was fatally shot, his family previously told AJC.com.
MORE: Family of man killed in home invasion says he was trying to protect his siblings
“He put himself in the lion’s den to protect his family,” cousin Darius Brown said at the time. “That’s what he did. And it cost him.”
"Had he not been there, they could have possibly killed myself and my other kids," Riley told Channel 2 this week.
The men got in a car and sped off, but Riley said she didn’t want her son’s killers to get away. She got in her car and chased them onto I-20.
"They stopped as soon as they saw me behind them, before they even got 100% on the highway, and just started shooting," she said.
Riley crashed her car into a median wall just west of Gresham Road. However, she managed to get a partial tag number that helped lead to the arrests of Brown and Whitfield, she told Channel 2.
"One thing the detective said was, 'I don't know if it was the dumbest thing you did or the smartest thing you did, but you reacted, and because of your reaction, we were able to get these guys,'" Riley said.
Brown and Whitfield were taken to a local hospital and then to the DeKalb County Jail, where they remain on charges of first-degree home invasion and felony murder. Their trial is set to begin in December, Channel 2 reported.
Riley said it makes her angry that the third person involved hasn’t been caught.
"We weren't bothering anybody,” she said. “We weren't doing anything wrong.”
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