Family remembers Nylo Lattimore on week of 5th birthday

CINCINNATI (WXIX) - Tuesday would have marked the fifth birthday of Nylo Lattimore, the boy investigators say was placed in the Ohio River alive by a man also accused of killing Nylo’s mother in late 2020.

It’s the second year Nylo’s family has celebrated the day without him.

“I know it would have been a big birthday party, ‘cause he was 5, you know?” Marlon Hunter, Nylo’s uncle, said Thursday. “He was big into cake and balloons. Like I said before, potato chips... He had a big obsession with potato chips.”

The week holds a lot of “what ifs?” for Hunter. He helped raise not only Nylo, but Nylo’s mother, Nyteisha Lattimore.

In honor of them both, Hunter is choosing to remember the good times before Nylo and his mother’s lives were taken.

“He loved tv, his little cartoons and Sesame Street,” Hunter said. “Tisha, energetic... you know, really smart.”

Hunter believes they would have been alive were it not for Desean Brown, who remains at the Hamilton County Justice Center on murder charges.

“What he did was unspeakable,” Hunter said. “Not only to her and her baby, but she was nothing but nice to him.”

Hunter says Brown and Nyteisha were dating but then she broke things off. He says Nyteisha was letting Brown stay at her apartment until he was able to find a place of his own. He thinks Nyteisha’s willingness to be independent was what led to her death.

“She wasn’t asking him for nothing,” he said. “She wasn’t leaning on him for anything, and I think that’s what would’ve gotten him mentally, that she didn’t need him.”

Dec. 4, 2020 was the last time family saw Nylo and Nyteisha. Days later, she was found stabbed to death. Nylo’s body has not been located. Prosecutors say he was thrown into the Ohio River after Brown killed Nyteisha.

Volunteer search crews organized by North Star International scouted more than 180 miles of shoreline in three states. NSI has no searches for Nylo planned at this time due to a lack of evidence.

“If somebody came up and they found something then they wanted us to search that area more, absolutely we would,” Tracy Campbell with NSI said last year. “But we know we’ve given it 110 percent and then some, and until we have a more concrete clue, we would just be spinning our wheels.”

Hunter is grateful for the search teams’ help and the support of the community.

While it’s been more than a year since their deaths, Hunter is still in disbelief and hasn’t been able to move forward. The pain is still deep.

“You can never heal nothing like this, never,” he said.

Desean Brown’s trial is set for Oct. 17.

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