Three days after 21-year-old Terrell Peterson was shot and killed on Essex Place in Walnut Hills, about 30 family members and friends walked the quiet side street with balloons and candles, searching for the exact spot where he was shot and asking who pulled the trigger, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported.
“It’s traumatizing right now because we have no suspects,” Peterson’s aunt, Saretha Brantley, told the Cincinnati Enquirer. “We just don’t know. We need answers.” Peterson’s mother, Kaneshia Brantley, wept as she read a poem in the candlelight, the Enquirer reported: “My baby boy, my shining son, gone too soon by a senseless gun.”
Peterson was shot on Oct. 28 in Walnut Hills, and three days later both the exact location along Essex Place and the identity of the shooter remained unknown, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer. Brantley told the Enquirer the family believes there is surveillance video and does not know whether Peterson was taken to that place: “How? Why? It doesn’t make any sense.”
Peterson grew up attending Mount Healthy schools before moving to Kentucky, where he graduated from Holmes High School in Covington, his family told the Cincinnati Enquirer. He played high school football and went into the National Guard, Brantley told the Enquirer. He had just moved back to Ohio after working at a lumber mill in Northern Kentucky and was living in Colerain Township with his aunt, who told the Enquirer he would have had no reason to be across town in Walnut Hills.
His family remembered a “very loving, giving” man who would freestyle rap at family events and loved joking around, Brantley told the Cincinnati Enquirer. “He was very funny, a joker,” she told the Enquirer. His grandfather, Ben Wilson, told the Enquirer he remembers getting dressed with his grandson before a big family wedding, and that Peterson had picked the nickname “Pawpaw” for him as a child. Peterson is survived by two brothers and three sisters, according to the Enquirer.
Peterson’s death marks the fourth homicide in Walnut Hills this year, a similar number to last year, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported. As of Oct. 26, robberies in the neighborhood were up by more than 50% compared with 2025, rising from 15 to 23, according to the Enquirer.
Anyone with information about Peterson’s death is being asked to call Crimestoppers at 513-352-3040, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported. Tips can be left anonymously. What happens next rests with that investigation: the family, having walked Essex Place with candles, says it is waiting for answers about how Peterson got there and who shot him.