TOOELE COUNTY, Utah -- It's every mothers’ worst nightmare. Darcy Horowitz was awakened in the middle of the night to find out her 17-year-old son, Jesse, was dead.
The teen was stabbed after an altercation outside an elementary school, and two suspects are in custody.
"Jessie was kind and loving and he had such a big heart, everybody loved him," Horowitz said. "He's my baby, he's always going to be with me."
On Saturday, friends and family gathered at the family's Stansbury Park home to watch Jessie's high school football highlight film.
"Beautiful athlete, beautiful athlete, just natural, when he was in 6th grade, standing on the side line, he looked like a pro football player from the back," Horowitz said.
Jesse's former girlfriend, Shandi Rose, drove in from Idaho when she heard the news.
"He is the one person you could always go to and he would be there for you no matter what," Rose said. "So it's going to be hard, all his funny moments, he was a funny guy, we're all going to miss him a lot."
Teammates said he was an amazing athlete and an even more amazing person.
"Happiest kid ever, he doesn't start problems, no one hates him; I don't know why this ever even happened," friend Jordan Scoggan said.
Jesse’s friends say there had been an on-going feud between one of them and one of the suspects, regarding a girl. On Saturday morning, the feud boiled over, in what turned out to be a deadly fight outside of Stansbury Park Elementary School just after midnight.
"Why he was there, he was our protector, he always had to have our back, he was just always there to have our back, guess he had to make sure he was there," friend Shane Lucero said.
Horowitz said she hopes this is the last fight these boys are ever in.
"I want these kids in Stansbury and everywhere to stop fighting," she said. "Why are you guys fighting? You know, do it for Jesse, just walk away."
