‘We are crashing’: NC mother continues search for answers in 14-year-old son’s 2021 murder

GREENSBORO, N.C. — Days after her 30th birthday, Jessica Brewer and her son moved to Greensboro from Philadelphia.

“Back home, everything is so violent, everybody’s so standoffish,” she said. “I just wanted to show him that it’s not like that in the world all over.”

Tragically, the want to remove her son from the violence she experienced as a child led to a multi-year need for the answer to who took him from their new life.

“He called and said, ‘Mom, can I stay after school for an hour to play basketball with my friends?’ My gut feeling told me to say no,” she said.

It was September 20, 2021. Her son, Basil Wilson, was a 14-year-old freshman at Dudley High School. Knowing he would soon be seeking expanded freedom as he grew into a young man, she reluctantly agreed to letting him delay his return home.

“Basil was still a kid, wholeheartedly, and that’s one of the things that I loved about him. No drugs, no gangs, Fortnite, Fortnite, Fortnite,” she said, referring to the popular video game.

Dudley High’s dismissal bell rings at 4:25 in the afternoon. More than an hour later, he hadn’t contacted her.

“At 5:39, I look at my phone and send him a text, ‘hey, are you ready,’” she recalled. “No response.”

The mother pulled up the location of her son’s phone and headed to a location approximately six minutes away.

“Once I start driving, the cops have it blocked off,” she said. “So I get out the car and I ask, ‘Excuse me, is there a basketball court around here? I’m looking for my 14-year-old.’ So, he was real blunt, ‘No ma’am, you can’t go this way.’ So, I said, ‘I’m gonna park my car and go around the other way. You can’t stop me.’”

As she walked into the scene, she says she was confronted by a woman living in the neighborhood.

“I looked up and said, ‘Ma’am, I’m looking for my kid.’ Just a couple more steps in, she said, ‘a 20-year-old got shot in front of my door,’” Brewer detailed.

To some, it could be conceivable how the 6’2” 14-year-old, lovingly referred to as “Sonny” by friends and family, could resemble an adult.

“They instantly thought Sonny was gang-related. And I hated it, “she said. “When I got up off the sidewalk, my body was so heavy. I knew it was my kid.”

After having a conversation, Brewer said she was told to go home and wait for a call. If they didn’t call, she said, she was told the victim wasn’t Basil.

Hours later, the hope he was safe was lost.

“The detective called my phone and told me to come identify my kid. And I lost it,” she said. “I lost it.”

The son she had moved several states away shortly after her 30th birthday had been killed before he could reach half of her age; gunned down near the intersection of East Florida Street and Randolph Avenue.

“From September 2021 until now, I live on autopilot,” she said, while sitting outside the FOX8 studios four years after Basil’s murder. “If I don’t scream his name, no one will.”

During that time, she’s joined a group of other mothers who have lost loved ones to gun violence in the city of Greensboro. They join to walk the neighborhoods where their lives were stolen, talking to people living there and handing out flyers.

Today, utility poles bearing pieces of paper showing Basil’s name and face line the neighborhood streets. The case has been taken over by a new detective Brewer claimed has uncovered new evidence in the case.

“I have faith in her, I do, and I back her 100 percent,” she added.

Still, the pain she first experienced on the Monday of his murder continues to grow.

“Night times for me are the worst, when I go home. Because he’s not there,” she said. “But when I wake up in the morning, I’m one day closer to being with him.”

In the four years since his death, she’s watched as the mothers of other victims, young and old, join the group she begrudgingly belongs to.

“Some of the moms say it took 12 years to find their killers,” Brewer said. “I don’t know if I have 12 years in me.”

“This remains an active and ongoing investigation,” a Greensboro Police spokesperson said, when asked for comment on the case. To date, no arrests have been made. We would like to take the opportunity to urge anyone with information to please contact Crime Stoppers.”

Brewer, meanwhile, continues to do her own investigative work into who stole the life of who she calls her best friend and latchkey kid.

“We have to do better as a community,” she said. “We have to do better. We are crashing. We are crashing.”

To see more of Michael Hennessey’s conversation with Brewer in the MyFOX8+ series NC Cold Case, click here.