PONTIAC, Mich. – Solomon Bonner, 14, was an outstanding student and athlete at Lake Orion's Waldon Middle School and had already been accepted at Orchard Lake St. Mary's for high school.
He was supposed to be at the mall one Saturday in March with some friends, and a friend's aunt was supposed to pick them up from Great Lakes Crossing and bring him home.
Solomon and friends instead hopped into another person's car and ended up at a home in Pontiac. They never should have been there. Solomon called his mom that night asking her to come and get him, but before she could get there, he was shot in the head and never regained consciousness. He died a week later.
Solomon was in that home with three other friends. The surviving boys at first lied and said they were robbed by a stranger. When that story unraveled, the boys admitted one of them, a 15-year-old boy, had shot him.
The shooting was supposedly an accident, but Bonner's family said it was no accident.
"We believe with all our heart this wasn't an accident," Bonner's aunt Stephanie Gonzales said.
Police have identified the shooter, but the other two boys are either refusing to talk to police or are telling conflicting stories. Their parents aren't cooperating either, according to the family and police.
Bonner was shot in the rear of his head at point blank range.
"I'd love for them to tell the truth on behalf of Solomon," his mother Ericka Weaver said.
Neighbors said it appears the boys had been inside that Pontiac home on Wall Street with no adult supervision, and had been gambling.
Solomon's body was found in a room with money on the floor. His family now believes the boy who shot him did so in anger because he was losing to Bonner.
Detectives working the case will only say one boy isn't cooperating, and the other is telling them a different story then he's telling others.
The gun the 15-year-old used was one he'd gotten on his own on the street, not from a family member or from inside the home. It was recovered in the yard.
Bonner comes from a large, loving family. They are refusing to just let this go.
"I hear Solomon in my ear," his mom said. "It won't go away."