Suspect still sought after man was shot, burned in Philadelphia back in 2022

PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- A Philadelphia man went out to a friend's studio to make music but never returned home in 2022.

His body was found days later, badly burnt and shot. Now his family wants answers that lead to their loved one's murderer.

Vernita Evans described her sons as her everything.

"My boys are mama's boys, and so I love them and they're grown men, but they're mama's boys. They all I got you know, they're the closest thing to my heart," she said.

So when 32-year-old Brian Brown didn't respond to her text about dinner on June 22, 2022, she got concerned.

"He's never going to stay out without letting me know he's okay because he knows how I am," Evans said.

She said earlier that day they were sitting on the couch together when Brown got a call from a man Evans didn't know.

"He's like kind of coercing and like with urgency to come around there to make some, so he said he has some beats for some rap something Brian did," she recalled.

That's when Brown left. When he didn't come home that night, Evans called the police.

"They told me, 'Miss you have to wait.' You know you have to wait at least I think they said 72 hours, 48 or 72 hours," she said.

On June 26, while serving a search warrant in reference to Brown's missing person investigation, a man's burned body was found along the 200 block of East Hortter Street in Philadelphia's Mount Airy section.

The body was later identified as Brown's. An autopsy revealed he had been shot.

Evans believes whoever called Brown on June 22 was involved.

"He thought this boy was his friend," she said. "This boy doesn't know the magnitude of hurt or pain he caused me for the rest of my life."

The City of Philadelphia is offering up to $20,000 in reward money for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the person responsible.

All you have to do is call the Citizens Crime Commission at 215-546-TIPS. All calls will remain anonymous.