Bre'yeon Wells

Bre'yeon and his mother, just 21 years old, went from being homeless without any support to keeping a job, renting an apartment and getting baptized. She was getting ready to enroll in school, Johnston said. But Johnston also described the mother's tragic decision to leave her child with a friend. She had to work, Johnston explained, and she'd recently totaled her car so she didn't have any transportation. "She was not a bad mom," Johnston said, "she was a trying mom. There is no book on parenting. There is no foundation of knowing how to take care of a child. She was trying, and she had the love and support of people trying to help her learn." He had a big vocabulary despite his young age and was curious about people and the earth. He loved flowers and Bluey the cartoon dog and his friends. "He didn't know a stranger," she said. "He was just so loving." Meanwhile, his mom got a job at Raising Cane's. She got an apartment. She suffered a recent setback when she totaled her car, but she was saving for another. On the weekends, she'd drop the baby off with Johnston so she could go to work. There, Johnston's four children got to know Bre'yeon, too. He became part of their family. On Monday, Johnston got the call: Her godson was dead. Come to Cardinal Glennon now. Johnston picked up her own children; everyone was concerned. They headed over to the hospital, but they weren't allowed inside, Johnston said. "My whole family just broke down," she said. On Thursday, prosecutors charged Nicco Lawalt Raymond Cotton, 21, with killing, sodomizing and abusing Bre'yeon. Charges say his preliminary cause of death was asphyxiation, and he showed signs of sexual abuse, as well as a lacerated liver and abdominal injuries.