Jaylen Griffin’s family still demands justice two months after body found

BUFFALO — It’s been two months since Jaylen Griffin’s body was found in the attic of a South Buffalo home, five miles from where he was last seen.

Griffin was 12 years old when he disappeared. His family said they last saw him leaving his home on Warren Avenue on August 4, 2020. He said he was going to a store in the area.

On April 12, police made the grim discovery. His family is grateful to police for finding him and giving him a proper burial.

“It was some damn good detective work,” Shirley Banks, Jaylen’s grandmother, said of Detectives Joelle Bence and Jon Weber of the Buffalo Police SVU unit who were investigating Jaylen’s disappearance. . “I take my hat off to them because they really did a good job.”

But the family is still demanding justice. They want to know who took Jaylen, who killed him and why.

“He was a 12-year-old kid,” Banks told 7 News. “He didn’t do anything to you. So why did you do what you did to him?

His family doesn’t understand how he ended up in South Buffalo.

“He doesn’t know anyone in South Buffalo,” Banks told 7 News. “He would never have been able to walk there. Someone had to take him there.

His uncle, Lamont Anderson, doesn’t understand how anyone could hurt his young nephew.

“What would drive someone to kidnap a 12-year-old from the store and then do to him what he did to him?,” Anderson said.

Banks said she has noticed that police and the public are paying more attention to missing children, whether they are considered runaways or not.

“No matter what, let’s help our kids, let’s help our community.” Let’s help these families because we don’t know what their parents are going through,” said Kareema Morris. “No one wants to carry this burden, no one wants to go through the pain, the anxiety, the wondering and the uncertainty of what which can happen. to a child when he is not at home.

Morris is leading a petition to try to strengthen laws to ensure all missing children are treated seriously. You can find the petition at btvbuffalo.org.

Banks says she hopes one more prayer is answered.

“I just pray and ask the good Lord to guide me and show me the way because what you do in the darkness reveals itself,” she said.

Crimestoppers WNY is offering a $7,500 reward for information leading to the arrest of the person who killed Jaylen Griffin.