Police say 16-year-old Franklin Torres Corcho was stabbed to death. His body was found along the Katy Freeway in The Heights, according to law enforcement.
The Houston Police Department is sharing a photo of a man they're calling a person of interest.
Investigators say he was with Franklin before he was killed.
The victim's mom, Yurleidis Paola Corcho, says no parent should ever have to bury their child.
Corcho told ABC13 she tried everything she could to get her son away from a life of drugs, taking him to countless cities in her home country, Colombia, to get rehab. She says she moved him all the way to the United States in an attempt to get him help here, only for him to be stabbed to death.
She told ABC13 that the day she found out someone had killed her son was the worst day of her life.
Corcho says she moved Franklin from Colombia to the United States last year to get him away from a life of drugs and give him a better life.
Their family thought he was adjusting, but they later found out he was skipping out on school and had fallen back into drugs. She says she did everything to get him help.
Corcho says the last time she hugged her 16-year-old son was on Sept. 25, when he told her he loved her and wished her a good day at work.
She reported him missing after he didn't come home. On Sept. 28, she says she and her husband drove desperately around their area and spotted him. They cried and begged him to sleep at home, but he wouldn't get in the car. Corcho says he told her he was going to go home shortly and was waiting for someone to save him a plate of food. On Tuesday, he was found stabbed to death in a vacant lot.
She wants whoever did this to her son to be held accountable, even though she says it won't bring her son back.
Houston police released the photo of this man this week, calling him a person of interest. Investigators say they want to speak to this man because he was seen with the teen before his death.
She says Franklin was laid to rest in Colombia.
As Corcho prepares herself for a painful holiday season without her boy, she says it's important to tell people you love them because you never know when you'll say it for the last time.
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