Family and friends gathered Wednesday evening in a west Birmingham park to a remember a 22-year-old man who was found shot to death there just three days ago.

Robert Alexander Brown, known affectionately by many of his friends as Rico, was discovered dead about 10 a.m. Sunday in Dolomite-Westfield Park. His family had gone looking for him and found him unresponsive inside his Audi SUV.

“Everybody knows how I felt about my son,’’ his mother, Alexandria Brown, told the crowd gathered at the park for the candlelight vigil.”

“Everybody’s got a due date. I just hate the way it went,’’ she said. “He didn’t deserve what happened to him.”

Among the mourners at the vigil was Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office Deputy Chief David Agee, Brown’s great uncle.

“Losing a family member to violence really hurts,’’ the veteran lawman said.

“We have too much violence in our community,’’ Agee said. “None of us are immune to violence.”

“We want peace. Our message from the very beginning is we don’t want any retaliation,’’ he said. “We want the courts to do what the courts do.”

“We’re praying for his mother and his sister and his cousins,’’ Agee said. “Right now, we just have to lean on each other for strength.”

Birmingham police were dispatched just after 10 a.m. Sunday to the park on Tin Mill Road on a report of a person shot.

Sgt. LaQuitta Wade said officers arrived to find Brown inside a vehicle. Birmingham Fire and Rescue and Rescue Service pronounced him dead on the scene from at least one gunshot wound.

Wade said the family had been looking for him since about noon Saturday to no avail. They were searching the Dolomite area Sunday morning when they found his SUV in the parking lot of the park.

Once they saw him inside, they called 911.

Brown’s aunt, Alisha Bell, helped to raise her nephew.

She said he was a handsome child who said few words when he was young.

“We didn’t think he was going to be able to talk until he was 3. He would just smile,’’ she said. “And the first words he told everybody was ‘shut up.’’’

Brown graduated from Minor High School and went to work after graduation.

Bell described him as silly, and said he was always smiling.

“He didn’t meet any strangers,’’ she said.

On Saturday, Brown’s mother went to work and told him that his sister was going to take him to the shop to pick up his car when he was ready.

She met them there to pay for the repairs, and that was the last time she saw him or heard from.

“He was walking off and his phone rang,’’ Bell said. “He told his mama he loved her, and he’d see her later.”

Family became concerned when he never called and began trying to find him.

On Sunday morning, they checked the location of his phone and that’s when they found him.

“He never goes that long without answering our calls because he knows we panic,’’ Bell said. “When she gave me the address, I typed it in and saw it was a park and I felt then something was wrong.”

The family said they have no idea who killed Brown or why.

“He hadn’t mentioned to us about being into it with anybody,’’ his aunt said.

The death has been a hard hit to the close-knit family.

“It has really torn us up,’’ Bell said. “He was loving. He was respectful. He was our son.”

A viewing for Brown will be held Thursday from 3 p.m. until 7 p.m. at Brighton Funeral Home.

The service will be held at 1 p.m. Friday at Brighton Chapel, with a repast to follow at the Magic City Event Center on Bankhead Highway.

No arrests have been made in Brown’s slaying.

Anyone with information is asked to call Birmingham homicide detectives at 205-254-1764 or Crime Stoppers at 205-254-7777.