Yolanda Dix raised Nick Turner the best way she knew how as a single mother. But without a man at home, the streets ultimately claimed her son.

The former football star’s body has not been found, but the police suspect he might be dead.

A single drop of blood that hasn’t been analyzed, leads police to the conclusion that Turner’s life met a violent end.

According to the AJC, Turner, 26, and a friend went to a weed spot around 8:30 p.m. on Aug. 28, in search of “weed from unknown individuals.”

As the young men approached a group of drug dealers behind a warehouse on Murphy Avenue, one of the men opened fire on them.

Turner was hit multiple times, according to Lt. Paul Guerrucci, commander of the Atlanta Police Department homicide unit. The friend claims he turned and ran as the shooting began, but he doubled back later to find Turner lying dead beside a rickety privacy fence.

The friend then called Turner’s family, not the police, Guerrucci told the AJC. When the family arrived at the scene, “the body was gone.”

A quick search of the area turned up a gun — an AK-47 — and some spent shells.

The family flagged down a patrol unit around 11:30 p.m. – roughly 3 hours after the shooting. By then the crime scene had been disturbed by the family.

All that was left of Turner, who had been shot 4 times, was a single drop of blood that has not been analyzed. The shell casings were from a handgun, not the AK-47 that the family found.

A police dog could not pick up Turner’s scent, adding to the mystery of what happened to him. Until they locate a body, police say they are categorizing Turner as a missing person’s case. “We can’t work it as a homicide,” Guerrucci said. “But none of the family members have heard from him.”

Turner’s mother said she warned her son about making bad decisions even though he had more potential than his friends. He was a Parade All-American running back at Washington High who went on to lead Mississippi State University in rushing.

But his football coach soon kicked Turner off the team for disciplinary problems and off-field incidents, which included an arrest for passing counterfeit bills at a nightclub.

“I told him, ‘If you keep doing what you’re doing, you’re going to end up dead or in jail,'” Dix told the AJC several days after he was last seen.

“I can’t sleep at night thinking somebody might be torturing him … or that he might be lying somewhere with bullets in his back,” Dix said.

Source: AJC