BUFFALO — One year ago this Saturday, Buffalo Police got a call about a body in the attic of a house on Sheffield Avenue in South Buffalo.
It would turn out to be that of Jaylen Griffin, who was 12 years old when he was last seen in the summer of 2020. His family said he left his house on Warren Avenue near the Central Terminal to go to a corner store a couple of blocks away on Broadway.
While the mystery of his whereabouts was solved, his killer remains at large.
“There is someone out here who is capable of killing a child,” said Kareema Morris, founder and CEO of Bury the Violence. She advocated for Jaylen’s family as they searched for him while he was missing and now as they seek justice for his murder. "Somebody knows something and sitting on that information should be tearing you up inside."
Jaylen’s family no longer lives on Warren. His mother died a few months before his body was found, never knowing what happened to him. His grandmother, who had stayed on the street, recently moved away. She had stayed at the house next door to his waiting for his return.
“This space is very, very, traumatic to live in, and that's not what we want them to continue on. We want them to start a healing journey,” Morris said on Tuesday while on Warren Avenue.
Morris said she has faith that justice will one day be served.
“I know this case will be solved because I believe God to bring forth those things like he did who would have ever thought to find him in a space like that years later,” she said.
One of biggest mysteries in this case is how Jaylen ended up nearly five miles away from his home in an attic in South Buffalo.
Chief of Detectives Craig Macy of the Buffalo Police Department said the investigation remains open.
“There has been some pretty good progress made,” he told 7 News outside the house on Sheffield Avenue where Jaylen’s body was found. “We're obviously not to the point where we have one specific suspect. We're not to the point where we can say we're confident that we're going to be making an arrest in the short term. But every interview and every piece of digital evidence or evidence in general is painting a picture and it's a piece of the puzzle.”
He said police want to talk to anyone with any information about what happened to Jaylen, no matter how small the detail may seem.
“Anybody that has anything about Jalen's whereabouts… anything that people have talked about, even if it's, you know, an ear witness. Somebody overheard a conversation. Anybody that knows anything about this case, we want to hear about it.”
Police asked anyone with information to call or text the police tip call line at 716-875-2255 or reach out to Crime Stoppers WNY which is offering a $7,500 reward.
