JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office is now calling the mysterious death of a local teenager a murder. Sergey Brooks, 19, was found unresponsive in a dead-end of a neighborhood on Jacksonville's Westside on July 6th. The suspects are still at large, according to JSO.
Brooks was a student and soccer player at Westside High School and then at Baldwin High School. Originally from Russia, he was adopted in June of 2015. He has two younger brothers who were adopted from the Ukraine, according to a post made by the family online.
“We fell instantly in love with Sergey and knew he was meant to be part of our family!" his mom wrote on the post.
The family has declined to comment on their son's death.
Michael White lives next to where Brooks' body was found. He says there were clear marks in the grass showing where a car had turned around and tire marks on the street where Brook's body was left.
"He was between the two red signs there. He looked like he'd been beaten and then dropped off," White said. "So many people getting shot around here, all this violence, I can't believe it."
His neighbor, who didn't want to be identified, is the one who found Sergey’s body and called the police. He was out walking his dog around 6:30 in the morning when he spotted his body and the tire marks.
"I saw the burn out marks, you could see where someone spun through the grass," he said. "I knew straight away that he was put there, you could see by the way his shirt was jacked up that someone had grabbed him, and maybe two people because somebody had to grab his legs."
His son says he heard screeching tires from a car in that very spot just hours before.
JSO is still accepting tips about the murder. The medical examiner can't confirm how Brooks died because the investigation is ongoing.
No suspect information is being released at this time.