An investigation goes cold when all leads are exhausted, but that is not the case when it comes to the investigation into the death of Kyle Morgan.
Was it a drug deal, a fight, or a kidnapping that lead to the 15-year-old John Marshall High School student’s death two years ago?
Tyara Martin says she doesn’t go a day without thinking about her friend Kyle Morgan.
“I can’t walk in the gym without remembering the first time he held my hand. Or walk down the stairs without remembering where he kissed me,” said Martin.
Tyara showed 7News anchor Tessa DiTirro her backpack: his name, a reminder of his smile, his contagious laugh, his kindness.
“It didn’t matter if he was having a bad day. He wanted everyone to be happy.”
Tyara and Kyle dated, but he got mixed up in a different crowd and they broke up.
When school let out, Kyle told her something.
“He was going to straighten his life out, that he wanted to do good, and that’s the last thing that I heard from him,” said Tyara.
Just weeks after this, Kyle asked for a ride from Moundsville to Wheeling, the start of the timeline of his homicide.
“I was praying that he was on a bus somewhere,” Tyara said.
Wheeling Police detectives said he was trying to a get a bus ticket to see his Mom.
“That’s what’s frustrating about it we don’t know what happened between, like, where the bus stop is and where he was found,” said Sgt. Gregg McKenzie.
Tyara said no one heard from him that rainy night in June.
His family said they knew something was wrong. Days later he was found dead under the Fort Henry Bridge.
“We wonder what happened. We look at people and wonder if they’re the one who did it,” said Tyara.
After dozens of interviews, search warrants, and some suspects, detectives say now they only get third party information, bits and pieces of new details.
“I lose a lot of sleep, you know, at nighttime thinking about this case,” said Wheeling Police detective Rob Safreed.
Kyle Morgan would have been a senior getting ready to graduate at John Marshall.
Instead of thinking about prom and graduation, his friends are thinking about justice.
“Whoever did this, please come forward, everyone is begging you to own up,” said Tyara.
Wheeling Police detectives say in order to solve this case, they need people who actually saw or know what happened, to come forward.
You can contact lead detective Rob Safreed at 304-234-3882