On Sunday, November 2, 2008, two days before his body was found by a homeless man, Alex called his best friend Isaiah (“Zayy”
around 1:30 a.m., after finishing the late shift at Taco Bell on the Boulevard. He said he’d met a girl. She had come to the restaurant earlier that night. He was heading home and planned to meet up with her later...
It’s unclear whether Alex actually met with the mystery girl, but at 9:11 that morning security cameras at his Overtown apartment building recorded him strutting out the front door, dressed in dark designer jeans and a black T-shirt, a red cap tilted fashionably to one side. He was supposed to be heading to Opa-locka to meet his mother and place flowers on the grave of his recently deceased grandmother. But he made a detour, and when Tawana called around 11:00 a.m. to find out where he was, he said he was “at a friend’s house” and would be late...
When he didn’t come home that night, Tawana began to worry... When he didn’t turn up at home or at school the next morning, though, she got scared. And then one of Alex’s co-workers at Taco Bell called with news that would send her racing through the streets in a panic.
A young lady had called the Taco Bell. She was crying and said that Alex had been killed and badly burned. She called more than once, said her name was Crystal, and spoke to more than one person, telling the same story each time. When Taco Bell employees asked why she didn’t call the police, she said her parents would kill her if she did.
