CHRISTIANSBURG, Va. – Damien Sawyers was found dead somewhere within the Chrisman Mills area on Saturday after he was reported missing shortly after Valentine’s Day.
Now, his sister Latesha Carbaugh, and the rest of his family are looking for answers.
She says that the last time she spoke with him was on Valentine’s Day after he had left her house.
“When he left, I hugged him and told him that I loved him and that I’d see him in a couple of days,” Carbaugh said. “Then he walked out the door and it was the last time I saw him.”
The siblings endured a rough childhood but could always depend on each other. Carbaugh says that she saw her brother more as her child and that the two would keep in almost daily contact.
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When Damien never reached out to her, she knew that something was wrong.
“On Valentine’s Day, my roommate dropped him and his girlfriend off about 12-12:30,” Carbaugh said. “It was about 2:00 and his girlfriend called me and said that she couldn’t find him and asked if I had talked to him.”
Carbaugh called the police but was told she had to wait at least 48 hours to report him as missing.
She and her roommate were out looking for Damien and eventually found him Saturday.
Carbaugh says that her brother would sometimes be around the wrong crowd.
“We had a hard upbringing, and I guess we just dealt with it differently,” Carbaugh said. “Like I have my past and his is just worse than mine and he dealt with it a lot differently than I did.”
She believes that others were involved in the death of her brother, but will always remember her brother as a kind and caring man who deserves justice for what happened to him.
“I hope that the people who did this to him are brought to justice,” Carbaugh said. “This is not a normal situation. This is not something that he done to himself. Other people were involved.”
