Alabama TikTok star Mama Tot shared her grief and frustration on the social media platform Friday, telling her 8.7 million followers how she feels after the person accused of fatally capturing her son in a botched pot deal turned himself in and was charged with homicide.
Ophelia Nichols, the true title of the social media star, advised how she felt a way of sorrow when she first noticed a photograph of Reuben Gulley, 20, who Prichard, Ala., police say shot her son, Randon Lee, 19, in a neighborhood fuel station.
‘I’m not glad,’ she mentioned. ‘After I seen that mugshot final night time, I believed to myself, ‘My goodness, he is only a child.’
She mentioned she noticed feedback from the suspect’s academics on-line saying ‘he was a beautiful younger man.’
TikTok star Ophelia Nichols mentioned the 2 males had a lot in widespread, like moms who would do something for them
Randon Lee, 19, Ophelia Nichols’ son, seen right here holding a wad of money. He was dealing pot when he was gunned down in a fuel station
‘I will be he was,’ she mentioned. ‘That simply made me assume inside 11 seconds he decided to only throw his life away.’
Nichols mentioned she discovered commonality between Gulley’s life and her son’s.
‘There’s one factor that he and my child youngster had in widespread and that’s that they each have a mom that may do completely something for them,’ she mentioned, choking again tears. ‘So keep in mind that there are two households which are hurting. There’s two of us.’
Gulley, of Saraland, Ala., turned himself in Thursday on the Cellular County Jail on a warrant for his arrest for Lee’s homicide.
Randon Lee, 19, seen right here together with his mother, TikTok star Mama Tot, aka Ophelia Nichols
Lee, who had simply turned 19, was a smalltime pot seller within the space who had offered weed to Gulley earlier than.
However on the night time of June 24, surveillance footage exhibits Lee met up together with his killer, every pulling as much as a fuel station pump of their respective automobiles.
One of many suspects, who police imagine is Gulley, may be seen entering into Lee’s automobile the place he fired the deadly shot.
He then obtained again into his personal car earlier than rushing off.
Randon Lee died in the future earlier than his nineteenth birthday. He was discovered useless in his automobile at a fuel station
TikTok star Mama Tot, aka Ophelia Nichols mentioned that she realizes that folks had been being entertained by the story of her slain son
After being shot, Lee managed to drive to a different fuel station, the place he died, Prichard Police Detective Jason Hadaway mentioned.
‘We do know at the moment that Mr. Lee did have a relationship so far as promoting to completely different people. These two people had purchased from him prior to now,’ the detective mentioned.
Lee was not on the native police’s radar as somebody identified to them to be promoting medicine.
‘We do know at the moment that Mr. Lee did have a relationship so far as promoting to completely different people. These two had purchased from him prior to now,’ Detective Jason Hadaway mentioned
‘We did every little thing we might to maintain him heading in the right direction however this previous 12 months everyone thought he was as a result of he was doing so good,’ Nichols mentioned. ‘However (it) provides no one the proper to shoot my son. That is all I do know.’
She mentioned that some of the painful issues was listening to the judgements of her son from individuals locally.
‘What harm me actually huge was when this all come out was individuals in my city – individuals I grew up with, store on the similar shops that they do – made such horrible feedback about my child youngster,’ she mentioned.
‘I believed, why? You do not even know him. Then I believed, “Lord, I hope she do not undergo that,” ‘ Nichols mentioned, referring to Gulley’s mom. She shook her head an bit her lip.
‘I do not want that on anyone. That was actually exhausting for me,’ she mentioned. ‘Neither certainly one of our kids ought to have been there that night time. Neither certainly one of them.’
I do know it’ll be a protracted street to justice,’ Nichols mentioned. ‘And I hope it is carried out proper.
In one other TikTok video posted afterward Friday, she sits in her automobile and categorical frustration over the eye she’s getting over Gulley’s arrest and the leisure worth it has for some followers.
‘My child kid’s life is not a humorous gossip story that occurred in a humorous small city a month in the past that we are able to snigger about it in the present day. This was my kid’s life and my youngster was murdered.’
