ALEXANDRIA, Va. — No matter how it happens, any parent who has to bury a child is left with questions on top of their grief.
"It hurts. It hurts really bad," said Kelly Poteat-Stubblefield. "Sometimes I just feel empty," she said.
Poteat-Stubblefield likely won't have answers until after an investigation - if ever.
Last Friday, police say her 18-year-old son, Jordan Poteat, another 18-year-old, and two 15-year-olds tried to carjack a man at a gas station in Alexandria.
Police won't discuss specifics because of their ongoing investigation, but it appears the carjacking victim shot and killed Poteat and wounded one of the 15-year-olds, who Poteat-Stubblefield says is still in the hospital.
All three teens who survived are facing charges for the carjacking.
From what she's learned from friends of the wounded 15-year-old, Poteat-Stubblefield believes her son had made it into the driver's seat and was starting the car when he was shot.
"I just don't understand where the threat is...if he was leaving off the scene," she said of her son during the alleged crime.
"I don't know what type of eye contact he gave you to make you feel intimidated or feel that type of way," she said of the man who shot her son. "But I'm sorry. Sorry for that pain you must have felt. I can't take it back. And my son is gone."
"I just think that you could have gave my son another chance," she said.
And then there's the question of how the son she says she was so close to could do something she would never imagine.
"My son had a lot of unresolved issues within him these past few months before he turned 18," she said.
"It was very difficult to raise a boy to become a man."
Police won't say of Poteat or any of the other teens were armed or fired any shots. But, Poteat-Stubblefield says she's heard from others that her son likely did have a gun which he did not fire.
Police say they would still like to hear from anyone who may know anything about what happened.