Hello, I’m Arry McNeill, the mother of Antonio J. Styles. He was my youngest of four kids. He was 17 years old when he was murdered on August 21, 2017, at 8 p.m., six days after his birthday. He was shot five times and left for dead at one of our local neighborhood parks, where he was playing basketball with some kids in the area. I will never forget this day because it was the day of the eclipse, and everyone was in a frenzy about it.
I woke that morning with this funny feeling in my stomach, like something wasn’t right, not knowing that day would the last day I would see our Tone alive — that when he left on his bicycle, he was never coming back home to us.
A older guy came to the park harassing the kids. I was told the guy left to get his gun and came back and started shooting. My son was the only one hit, and he fell to the ground calling my name. The blessing in it all is the day before, he gave his life to Christ at church. Our lives have never been the same since we lost Tone.