CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- The step-sister of a missing North Charlotte teen, who is presumed dead, said Saturday that her brother ran away from home.
Delvonte Tisdale’s father, Anthony, told police he last saw his son Sunday night.
Monday night – just hours after Anthony Tisdale reported his son missing -- the shirtless, shoeless body of a young man was found in an upscale neighborhood in the Boston suburb of Milton, Massachusetts.
Milton police said the body was mangled beyond recognition, but a lunch pass in the pocket of the man’s jeans had Delvonte Tisdale’s name on it.
Neither Charlotte-Mecklenburg nor Milton police can confirm the body is Tisdale’s, but a CMPD investigator told NewsChannel 36 Saturday that they are almost certain it is.
The teen had just moved to Charlotte with his family this past summer, and Tisdale was enrolled in North Mecklenburg High School.
He was a member of the school’s Air Force Jr. ROTC program.
Tisdale’s step-sister, who asked not to be named, said Tisdale didn’t want to be in the military and didn’t like living in North Carolina.
She said Tisdale and his father fought often. “He and his real father used to get into fights, fist fights,” she said.
She said Tisdale and his father fought before he left.
She also said he was headed back to Baltimore to live with her or one of his many brothers and sister or other extended family members in the area.
She said he had gotten a ride with two friends, but she didn’t know them or where they were going, or how her brother ended up near Boston.
Thursday night, she posted on her Facebook page, “Today is the worst day of my life. I just found out my brother Delvonte Tisdale was found dead.”
Tisdale’s step-sister says her mother and Tisdale’s mother are both “heartbroken .. and can’t stop crying.”
Even though Tisdale has a large extended family of step-siblings and half-siblings, the woman says they are a close-knit family of more than a dozen children who consider themselves brothers and sisters.
Investigators returned to Anthony Tisdale’s north Charlotte home Saturday, and Delvonte Tisdale’s mother, Jonette Washington, also drove down from Maryland to talk to them.
The detectives said little about the case, other than they talked to “lots” of people on Saturday, and that there were several detectives on the case.
Investigators from Milton are also in Charlotte to try to piece together a timeline and confirm if the body found Monday is Delvonte Tisdale’s.
Two North Meck students who ride the bus with Tisdale shook their heads when they talked about Tisdale’s disappearance and apparent death.
“It’s kind of shocking to me,” said Brandon Lockhart, a senior at North Meck. “He was a cool kid, never bothered anybody. He just kept to himself -- just a normal teenager.” His brother Melvin, a junior, agreed. “I just hope they find out what happened, because it’s just kind of scary right here.”
Neighbor Carol Brinson said she spoke to Delvonte Tisdale and his father often, and they seemed like a nice family. She said the teen was quiet and polite, and always talked with respect.
“It’s bizarre -- just so bizarre what happened to this young man,” said Brinson. “..how he could be in Charlotte one minute and then in the Boston area the next when they found him.”
She went on: “That’s why this is so shocking -- not that things don't happen to good kids but that it happened to a human being, and he was just a s sweet guy,” she said.
