Eric Wheeler was shot to death Dec. 16, in Bellaire. The suspect, Ronald Byard, 62, is now in jail under $250,000 bond.

Wheeler had once lived with Lisa Koontz and her family.

Koontz said the boy had no one else.

"His mom died last November," Koontz said. "She had cancer. And that's all he had in the world."

Koontz said Eric was a good kid but his behavior was annoying.

She said even his friends didn't take him seriously.

"It was hard to deal with a kid that bounces off the wall all the time," she noted. "And so they kind of made fun of him sometimes."

She said Eric's biggest problem was not hyperactivity, but marijuana.

"How do you help a kid who doesn't want help?" Koontz said. "He lived the way he wanted to. He liked doing the marijuana. But all he wanted to do was smoke dope. That's all he thought about. But he didn't deserve to die for that. He needed help."

Koontz said she finally told him he couldn't stay with her family any longer.

That's a decision that is haunting her today.

"I don't know," she said. "I feel like, by telling him he couldn't stay at our house anymore, I was signing his death warrant with those people."

She said Eric loved video games, rap music and life in general.