A mother's last memory: 'He was standing there, so handsome'

The last time Dahlia Brown saw her 15-year-old son alive, he was standing in her bedroom doorway wearing a smile and a little too much cologne.

It was 10:15 p.m. and he was pleading to visit one of his best friends.

It was a friend Brown trusted and had known for some time. A 15-year-old’s perfect alibi.

“He was standing there, so handsome. And he smelled so good,” Brown said. “And I literally asked, ‘What are you going to do? Just hang out? Looking like that? Smelling like that?’ But, he’s not a bad kid, so I let him go.

“He was just so quick with his lie.”

But as he stood there, in the doorway, smiling at his mother, she reluctantly waved goodbye.

Then, the exhausted mother fell asleep quietly as her middle son’s life would soon come to a screeching halt.

THE SHOOTING

Daydrian Brown was shot multiple times and died in the street outside of a house party near East 22nd Street and South Craycroft Road, police say.

He never ended up at the home of his friend.

The white lie that led Daydrian to the party ended with his death, his mother said.

“To this day I don’t know which ‘friend’ he was with,” Brown said.

Prior to the shooting, police say, Daydrian argued with some partygoers about a bottle of alcohol stolen from a group of girls.

“This, over a $25 BuzzBomb,” Brown lamented Tuesday.

While most of the people at the party fled before police arrived, interviews and a search of cellphone videos and photos left investigators confident they’ll find Daydrian’s killer.

WHERE’S MY SON?

Later that night, Brown awoke to pounding at her door.

It was the friend Daydrien was supposed to be with, and his parents.

Daydrian had been in an accident, they told Brown.

“A car accident? Did he fall? What happened?” she pleaded.

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“I don’t know. I wasn’t at the party,” the friend said.

“Party?!”, Brown exclaimed. That was the first time she’d heard of one.

By the time she got to the crime scene, Brown said, the street was mostly empty and her son had already been placed in a body bag.

She wasn’t allowed to see Daydrian’s body, but she hugged the bag tightly.

She rubbed his shoulders through the thick material, then the knee that always bothered Daydrian when he played soccer.

A SOCCER STANDOUT

Daydrian was very well known in the soccer community.

He was a star player who began playing at the age of 5.

His dad, Rene Guevara, was his first coach.

“When he stepped on the field, you felt it,” Brown said of her son’s soccer skills. “He was so, so beyond good. So talented.”

And he was a good person, too, she pointed out. ”He made everyone around him feel loved. If there was a kid in the corner no one was talking to, he’s going to talk to that person.”

Daydrian played forward with the Vail Soccer Club before going to FC Tucson’s youth team.

He played for Arizona’s Olympic Development Program and his coaches said he tried out for their regional team.

Brown said their home was the gathering place for all of Daydrian’s soccer friends.

“I was the soccer mom,” she said proudly, as if wearing a badge of honor. “Everyone was always at my house. It was always crazy, but it was always beautiful,” just like her son, she said.

She’ll remember his silly voices and his penchant for having picture-perfect haircuts. She’ll remember his love for the rapper Drake, and desire to make everything “extra.”

During a vigil held Monday, Vail Soccer Club Coach Jarrett Galigher said Daydrian, “embraced everything that we encourage in soccer culture: creativity, enjoying the game, having a passion about the game.”

His father said his son is leaving behind a legacy for future generations.

“They’re going to go out and say if it wasn’t hard for him, and he just puts in the work, then I can do it too,” Guevara said.

“And that’s what I want the legacy of Daydrian to leave behind, is anything is possible for anybody.”