This is not the story of a young man who died because no one bothered to help him. Lots of people — coaches, teammates and kin — saw his gifts and sought to get him on the path to using them. If anything, it's the story of those would-be helpers, left behind and haunted by Crowder's decision to take a darker path. Why would a 17-year-old, cruising toward a Division I scholarship, go back to the neighborhood he once described as a war zone? What drew him, inexorably, to the place where his best friend was murdered, where two brothers hit the ground in agony after catching bullets? How could the dream they were all constructing have been so fragile?

"So many people are hurting, because so many people tried to step in and say, 'John, you should get out,'" says Brodie, who became his cousin's guardian and lived with him in York, Pa., until John moved back to his grandmother's house six weeks before his death. "They saw his potential. But it's like he was addicted to the neighborhood."

In recent weeks, it became apparent that Crowder was on a dangerous path:

Brodie quickly saw the environment eroding all of John's progress. The 17-year-old stayed out until the wee hours, drinking, smoking marijuana and letting his cherished basketball skills slip. When Brodie confronted him about dealing drugs, he says John didn't bother to deny it. "He was just addicted to the lifestyle," Brodie says.

Countless people tried to steer John back on track. "Even the people in the hood who were living wrong would tell him, 'You need to get back out of here,'" Brodie says.