On Monday night, Cornelius called his parents and asked them to come pick him up at a Walgreens at East 50th Place and South Cottage Grove Avenue. But when the couple arrived at 9:38 p.m. he was nowhere to be seen, so his mother called his cellphone and his friend's phone, she said. He asked them to pick him up at a friend's nearby home, saying he had been too fearful to walk to the bus stop because of recent gang troubles there, she said.