MUSKEGON, Mich. (WZZM) - The case of the three missing boys from Morenci really hit home for a Muskegon woman. So much so, that she traveled all the way to Morenci last week to aid in the search efforts.

Call it maternal instinct or just an innate need to help but when stay at home mom Staci Hiler heard about the three missing Morenci boys she imagined what it would feel like if it had been her two kids and she knew she had to do something.

"I think that is probably the main feeling of why I decided I couldn't let it go. I couldn't stop. I would get up and go to the bathroom at night and I would think of them and they weren't even mine," said Hiler. "It was just from reading tidbits on the internet and seeing glimpses on the news."

Hiler says those reports about the Amber Alert issued for Tanner, Alexander and Andrew Skelton, had her imagining what it must be like for them if they were somewhere needing help.

MUSKEGON, Mich. (WZZM) - In the days and weeks before her 19 year old son Brandon was murdered in Muskegon, Sharia McPherson says she feared for his safety.

"Oh yes, of course," she says. "I knew some of what was going on, but, at this point, he is an adult and he wants to do what he wants to do. You just hope and pray."

Thursday night, Brandon's family and friends gathered at the corner of Isabella Avenue and Ambrosia Street for a vigil. That's where the teenager was shot and killed Sunday afternoon.

"I thought I would never lose something so close to me," says older brother Byron McPherson. "I mean, one minute you talk to him, the next minute he's gone."

The vigil was to both remember Brandon and to think of ways to stop young African American men in Muskegon County from killing each other and instead, live in peace.