A family is devastated after the deadly stabbing of a 19-year-old ballet dancer at his mother's home in Brockton, Massachusetts.
Kyre Ambrose was stabbed 28 times shortly before 2 a.m. Saturday, prosecutors said. He was taken to Good Samaritan Hospital, where he died from his injuries.
Police arrested 18-year-old Jayden Fernandez of Boston at Newton Wellesley Hospital, where they learned he was being treated for a hand injury. He was arraigned Monday in Brockton District Court, pleading not guilty to a charge of first-degree murder.
Ambrose's mother was home at the time and had gone to bed less than two hours earlier, prosecutors said in court.
"She was awoken by the sounds of her son yelling for help downstairs," Plymouth County Assistant District Attorney Dan Higgins said. "When she went downstairs, she saw a male on top of her son, apparently punching him."
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Prosecutors said in a press release Monday that Fernandez had been identified in surveillance footage from a gas station near the crime scene, where he had stopped to use a good Samaritan's cellphone. After his arrest, "dark clothing, gloves, and a knife with reddish-brown stains on them," were found at his Dorchester home, they said.
"What we don't have here is a complete and full investigation of this matter," Fernandez's defense attorney, Paul Lonardo-Roy, said at his arraignment. "We have conclusions, but we don't have the information behind it."
Ambrose's family and friends are remembering him as a rising star.
"Kyre literally touched every single person that is a dancer in Boston's life," said close friend Shanta Simmons-Farley.
Director Micki Taylor-Pinney of the Boston University Reach dance program said the news is crushing to the community.
"Obviously, when you know someone, and know how much promise they had and how much they gave to people and how much they gave to the people they worked with, just all that much more shocking," she said.
Simmons-Farley and her daughter were witnesses to Ambrose's talent. She said his parents put everything into his future.
"He was funny, smart, just beautiful to look at, beautiful to be around," she said. "He literally was the life and the laughter in everything."
Fernandez was ordered held without bail. He is due back in court for a probable cause hearing on Feb. 6.
