A teen who was reported missing from his Brooklyn home this week was found dead the next day on freight train tracks – shot in the head with severe burns, cops said Friday.
Deandre Matthews, 19 — who lived on East 56th Street in East Flatbush — was reported missing on Monday, authorities said.
Police found Matthews around 4 p.m. the next day with “significant burn wounds throughout his body” and a gunshot wound to the head, lying on freight train tracks about three miles away on Nostrand Avenue — steps from the Brooklyn College campus, cops said.
Matthews, who also showed signs of smoke inhalation, was pronounced dead at the scene.
Cops confirmed Friday that his death had been ruled a homicide.
Deandre Matthews, 19, was found dead on freight train tracks near 2236 Nostrand Ave. NYPDThe slain teen, known to his loved ones as Dre, left his job at detail shop Buggy TLC in Crown Heights Monday and hadn’t been seen since, his family told WCBS.
His mother’s Jeep Cherokee was found burned a few minutes away on Troy Avenue on Tuesday.
The teen’s mother Danielle Matthews — who tracked the car, leading to the discovery of the body — grieved the loss of her only son.
“I want justice for my son,” she told the network. “My son got off of work Monday and then that was it.”
Family members say Matthews studied criminal justice at SUNY Broome Community College and hoped to become a social worker, according to the report.
He had a good sense of humor and enjoyed being with his family. He also enjoyed driving and playing video games, relatives said.
“This is disgusting,” his sister Dajanae Gillespie told the network. “Like, my brother didn’t do anything to nobody, and I can really say that. He wasn’t in a gang. He wasn’t a violent kid. He wasn’t a bad kid. You know what I’m saying? He stayed in the house.”
“We don’t know nothing,” added the boy’s aunt, Tamika Matthews. “We don’t know anything and my sister, she don’t deserve this at all, at all.”
Matthews’ death was ruled a homicide, though no arrests had been made Friday.
“We love him, we love him, and I’m so sorry that this happened to him.”
Colleagues at the teen’s workplace on Empire Boulevard told The Post that he had recently started working there.
“He was just a baby,” said one worker who did not want to be identified. “He was very quiet. He goes to work, and that’s it. He doesn’t talk to people.”
“I’m sad, shocked. I’m just trying to process it. It’s just super sad.”
The circumstances leading up to his death were not immediately known, and no arrests had been made by Friday morning.
