Jeffrey Steven Wright II, a 16-year-old Black/African American male, was found dead in a wooded area in the 100 block of Oakland Avenue in Huntington, West Virginia, on July 25, 2015. Police say gunfire was reported in the Oakland Avenue area on the morning of July 23; Wright’s family and his obituary record that as the date of his death, and investigators later described the death as a shooting. Wright’s mother, Kimberly Adams, said at a vigil that he ran before being ambushed and that his body had been covered with leaves, but police awaited the autopsy and were continuing to reconstruct events before confirming those details.

Local coverage reported that investigators believed the killing occurred during an attempted robbery, but available reports do not establish who initiated the confrontation or assign Wright or anyone else a specific role beyond the connection to an attempted robbery. Early in the probe police did not name a suspect or person of interest and the scene’s remaining undiscovered for roughly two days complicated the investigation. No arrest, charge, or prosecution is identified in the contemporaneous reporting.

Funeral services were held at Spirit of the Lord Church in Huntington, followed by burial at Spring Hill Cemetery. Does anyone have information about Wright’s movements on July 23 or who might have been with him that morning?