Family, friends, and a college campus are grieving the death of a 21-year-old D.C. native who was fatally stabbed on Monday night.

Marcus Edwards, a sophomore at Morgan State University, “had a million dollar smile and a drive to succeed,” Nicole Ausberry-Brooks told Fox 5 News about her son.

Baltimore police say they have few leads as they investigate Edward’s death, which took place in the middle of crosswalk not far from his off-campus apartment, T. J. Smith, a Baltimore police spokesperson, said at a press conference yesterday.

Police found Edwards suffering from a wound in his chest around 10:30 p.m. at the intersection of Loch Raven Boulevard and Woodbourne Avenue, Smith said. “We really don’t have a lot of information in this case, but what we do know is that there are a lot of people that stopped at the intersection, there was heavy vehicular traffic in the time that this murder occurred.”

Smith said that it didn’t appear Edwards was involved in a major confrontation prior to the incident. There’s also no evidence that this was a robbery, however, it isn’t being ruled out.

“It’s a disgusting, sad, and tragic situation that we’re talking about—a 21-year-old sophomore from a college right down the road who’s the victim of a homicide,” Smith said to reporters. “It has to be one of the worst things in the world to send your child off to school and get a phone call in the middle of the night that your child is no longer going to be with you because of violence.”

Edwards aspired to be a detective and interned with the Treasury Department, in addition to joining the Metropolitan Police Department Junior Police Academy, Fox 5 reports. “That’s all he ever dreamed about,” Ausberry-Brooks said of her son. “He went to school for social work and he wanted to help the disadvantaged youth.”

Edwards is the second Morgan student to be fatally stabbed near campus in the past year, according to the Baltimore Sun. “Unfortunately even our school community is not immune to some of the violence that we’re experiencing as that’s a microcosm of society,” Smith said, adding that several people stopped to aid Edwards before police arrived. “And right now we’re just really appealing to the public for help,” he continued.

As the campus mourns the loss as well, a Morgan State University group is holding a vigil this evening.

Filed Under: baltimore, homicide, marcus edwards, morgan state, morgan state university,