WASHTENAW COUNTY, MI — Although he had only been in the state for just a few weeks, Jason Gregory had already touched lives.

Gregory, 18, had recently moved from Alabama to the Ann Arbor area to pursue the first steps of becoming a master electrician. In June, he was found on a Washtenaw County highway with a gunshot wound to the head.

“It is heartbreaking to know that Jason’s future and our future with him was violently and senselessly taken away,” wrote Morgan Gregory, his mother, in an email to MLive/The Ann Arbor News.

Police were called to westbound I-94 near Parker Road in Lima Township around 3:30 a.m. Wednesday, June 21, for a report of a single-vehicle crash. When they arrived, they found Jason Gregory, the driver, bleeding from his head, Michigan State Police Det. Sgt. Jeff Frasier told Magistrate Elisha Fink at a swear-to hearing on Tuesday, June 27. While enroute to the hospital, officials discovered Gregory had been shot in the head at least one time.

Kendall Newbern, 16, was charged with open murder, armed robbery, assault with intent to rob while armed and larceny from a person in connection with the incident. He was referred to a competency exam on Thursday, July 6, and is set to next appear in court on Thursday, Aug. 31.

Newbern said he and Gregory did not know each other, Frasier said.

Read more: Judge orders competency exam for 16-year-old charged in I-94 homicide

Jason Gregory had recently graduated from Buckhorn High School near Huntsville, Alabama, and moved to Michigan over Memorial Day weekend, according to Morgan Gregory.

“He had plans to help his aunt and uncle with the animals on their property while also starting training in the field of electrical,” she said.

Her son had spent two years of high school in the construction program at Madison County Career Tech Center and had scheduled an interview with Ann Arbor Electrical JATC to apply for their Residential Apprenticeship Program, she said. The program would have been an early step to becoming a master electrician in six years.

As a child, Jason spent a lot of time playing with Legos and sketching, a creativity his mom said she sees as an inspiration to his career path. He often gave her drawings for Mother’s Day, she said.

“The drawings always reminded (me) of the special relationship between a mother and son,” she said. “I treasured these drawings when Jason gave them to me, but now they are treasured even more so.”

Despite only being in the Ann Arbor-area for a short time, Jason Gregory had already made an impact. A manager at one of his jobs reached out to his mother after hearing the news of his death, Morgan Gregory said.

“She relayed to me how ‘this fun young kid’ had an attitude that was ‘infectious,’ that he was respectful, eager to help and always went ‘above and beyond,’” Morgan Gregory said. “She also told me that Jason ‘made everyone laugh, and his kindness to everyone was something the world needed more of.’”

It’s a sentiment she agrees with, she said.

Jason Gregory had a “rare” connection to animals, particularly dogs and horses, his mother said. At 13, he adopted a rescue dog, who began displaying symptoms of tick paralysis.

“Jason stayed by her side day and night to care for her and provide her the treatment she needed so she could return to full health,” she said. “That was the start of the two of them becoming inseparable.”

The dog now stays with Jason’s aunt and uncle.

“She still looks for Jason to come home there,” Morgan Gregory said.

A GoFundMe to cover Jason Gregory’s funeral expenses has raised nearly $5,000 as of Monday afternoon.

Although she has been amazed by the support of Michigan residents who knew her son, Morgan Gregory said, the family is both missing him and mourning an unfufilled future.

Her son will never get to have a career, own a house or have a wife or children, she said. Much of the family is in shock, she added.

“All of us are grieving, each in our own way,” she said. “However we grieve, one thought seems to be prevalent with all of us: Jason was taken from us way too soon, and he is greatly loved and missed.”

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