Birthday Party Hosted for 3-Year-Old Killed by Stray Bullet

The party came with everything you'd expect for child turning four years old: balloons, games, friends, and cake.

But this birthday boy never showed up to the celebration in his honor.

A stray bullet pierced the walls of his North Minneapolis home the day after Christmas and killed him.

Terrell Mayes will only ever have three birthdays.

Just three.

And yet, there was his mother, Marsha, hosting a party on Sunday.

"As long as I've got life in my body, I'm going to come here and celebrate his birthday every year, until the killer is caught," Marsha Mayes told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS while she stood nearby several dozen friends, family, and members of the neighborhood she once called home.

Mayes even went so far as to publicly invite the shooter who took her son's life to come to the party Sunday and turn himself or herself into authorities. Police have made no arrests.

A study by the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California Davis released earlier this month found that 317 people were wounded or killed by stray bullets nationwide in the one year examined. Forty percent of the victims, like Mayes, were shot in their own homes. And just like Mayes, nearly one in three victims were younger than 14 years old.

Watch our story above for more on Sunday's birthday party for Terrell Mayes.

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