Miss. Mom Has Lost 2 Sons to Gun Violence in Span of Month: 'I Have to Remain Strong' (Exclusive)

Cameron Horne-Crook, 14, was gunned down March 25. In April, his brother, Bryson Horne-Wash, 20, was also fatally shot

Bryson Horne-Wash stumbled into his cousin’s bedroom.

“I just got shot,” he said.

Then, Horne-Wash crumpled to the floor.

His mother, Violet Horne, who recounted her son’s last moments in an interview with PEOPLE, says she knelt beside him, doing chest compressions.

The 20-year-old from Brandon, Miss., died later that April 23 morning — just 29 days after his 14-year-old brother was gunned down in the backseat of a car one county over.

“I am a strong-minded, strong-willed woman,” Horne tells PEOPLE. “I have lost two kids, but it is not going to break me down, because I still have to remain strong for my other three children.”

Related: Miss. Mother Loses 2 Sons to Gun Violence in 1 Month: A Look at the Cases

On March 25, her younger son, Cameron Horne-Crook was shot “multiple times,” according to the Jackson Police Department, which has released few public details of the child’s killing.

His body was found at a dead-ended road near a group of abandoned houses in the state’s capital, his mother tells PEOPLE.

Related: 3 Miss. Teens — Ages 15, 16 and 17 — Charged with Murder of Middle Schooler, 4th at Large

PEOPLE spoke with a Jackson detective and obtained a court filing in Cameron’s case. PEOPLE also obtained the Rankin County Sheriff’s Office’s incident and booking reports connected to Bryson’s killing. Both law enforcement agencies declined to provide further details Wednesday, May 1.

Three teenagers – 15, 16 and 17 – were initially charged as adults in Cameron’s shooting, although murder charges were later dropped against the two younger teens.

On Tuesday, April 30, John Foote, 17, was slated for a preliminary hearing before the case could be sent to a grand jury, his lawyer, Brandon Dorsey confirmed to PEOPLE ahead of the hearing.

Two 20-year-olds were charged in connection to Bryson’s killing, after they walked into the Rankin County Sheriff’s Office and confessed, according to investigators.

Charged with murder, Ryan Scott Duette is in jail on a $500,000 bond.

Lainey Bella Ingle, who is charged with felony accessory after the fact, was released the day after Bryson’s killing on a $50,000 bond.

Horne fears the county sheriff's office — which made recent headlines following a racially motivated attack by six of their White former officers who dubbed themselves the “Goon Squad” — will fail her son Bryson.

“To them, it’s another Black boy dead, another Black boy off the streets,” she says. “Kill a Black person, it’s a slap on the wrist to get out of jail. Honestly, I have no faith in the judicial system in Rankin County.”

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Horne says her sons had flaws, but that they didn't deserve their fate.

“I’m not painting a perfect picture of either one of my sons, because neither one of my sons was perfect: no one on this earth is perfect,” she says, then referencing her sons in present tense she says: “They have their flaws, they dig their dirt, but at the end of the day, they did not kill anyone.”

An eighth grader, Cameron was “a silly, fun-loving mama’s boy” who enjoyed composing raps with friends, and had been spending more time in the gym preparing to follow his older brother’s footsteps and join the high school football team next year, his mother says.

He was also an attentive older sibling to his baby brother, Chance, 4, who, Horne says, keeps asking for “Cameron, Cameron, Cameron.”

A high school athlete who played football, basketball and track until football concussions destroyed his eyesight in 2022, Bryson graduated from Northwest Rankin High School last year.

Becoming a father at 17 to his daughter, Za’Riyah Horne, now 3, her oldest son stepped up to the new role, Horne says.

“He saw my struggles as a single parent, and he never put the mother of his child through that,” Horne says. “He took care of his daughter.”

On Saturday, May 4, Horne will bury her oldest son beside her younger.

“Bryson and Cameron were my protectors,” Horne says. “I no longer feel safe in Mississippi. Hopefully, one day, me and my family can get out of here.”

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