SALT LAKE CITY — The family of Javen Welcher, the 17-year-old shot and killed on Halloween night in West Valley City, continues to grieve his loss as suspects remain at large days after the incident.
"He was a great kid, for him to be shot and killed. It’s horrible. It’s tragic," said Welcher's mother, Jennifer Diaz, through tears. "It’s just so tragic."
Outside their Salt Lake City home Monday, Welcher's family shared the horrifying way in which they learned of Javen's death.
Multiple shots heard below in home security video outside Halloween party:
"I was supposed to go pick him up between 1 and 2, so I started calling at midnight, his phone just kept ringing and ringing, and that’s just not like him," Diaz shared.
Hours later, Diaz and her family learned what had happened.
Police said an altercation that began inside a home during the party carried on outside, leading to gunfire. Two people inside a vehicle driving away from the party, Welcher and a 15-year-old girl, were shot. As the pair were being taken to the hospital, the car they were in crashed in Murray, and Welcher was declared dead at the scene.
"He died senselessly," said Diaz. "He was at a Halloween party and was shot. He was not involved in gangs; he was not involved in nothing. He had a bright future ahead of him. He was going to school, getting ready to be a barber."
Family members are still trying to make sense of it all.
"You got kids out here being shot! You don’t think it’ll happen to you, and then it does," said Javen's sister, Kelsey Burkhardt.
The family is unsure why an ambulance wasn’t called or why Javen and the girl, who remains in critical but stable condition, weren’t immediately taken to a hospital.
"It’s not fair," added Burkhardt, "I can’t trust this world anymore."
Burkhardt is now worried about letting her own daughter out of her sight.
"I can’t think of why you need guns at a 17-year-old Halloween party anyway," she said. "I just don’t know how to cope with it."
The fatal shooting was the second in back-to-back weekends involving teenagers at a Halloween party in West Valley City. Police said officers are working day and night on the case, and Welcher's victim’s family is asking anyone who has information on what happened to come forward as they continue to try to find answers and push for justice for Javen.
"I don’t really know if there’s an answer that will help ease the pain," Diaz said.
Javen's mother hopes to see an arrest made soon and that the teenage girl who's now hospitalized can help in the investigation.
"That the person that shot him is put behind bars and has his day in court, and we can tell him what a loss that he shot [Javen], and the world is such a worse place without him," she said while crying. "I mean, why did teenagers have guns at parties? I mean, it just doesn’t even make sense."
A GoFundMe page has been created to help family with funeral expenses.
