The Boston Globe

The unsolved murder of Kendric Price, a beloved youth mentor gunned down on his childhood street in Dorchester

Kendric Price (standing, center) was photographed in 2012 helping Knyzhaun Peete, Christian Clark, Lewis Bryant, and Divine Braxton-Price look up the value of various businesses on a Saturday morning at Buckingham Browne and Nichols School in Cambridge. Aram Boghosian for The Boston Globe

Kendric Price had seemingly done everything right. He grew up on Greenwood Street in Dorchester, graduated from Buckingham Browne & Nichols School in Cambridge, and got a scholarship to the University of Michigan, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in just three years.

The 6-foot-9 Price became a financial analyst and started a nonprofit called Big Business Network, where he worked with kids, using basketball to teach them about finances.

Kendric Price worked on a problem on the whiteboard with 10-year-old Lewis Bryant in 2012. Aram Boghosian for The Boston Globe

“I’m not saying I can change the world,” Price told the Globe in 2012. “But I’m planning to make a difference one child at a time.”

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He also coached basketball, first as an assistant coach at Roxbury Community College and University of Massachusetts Boston, and later as a head coach at Brooke High School.

In March 2019, Price was settling into his new job at Cristo Rey Boston High School and getting ready to move into a new apartment in downtown Boston when he was killed on Greenwood Street, the street he grew up on in Dorchester.

University of Michigan basketball players, from left, Zack Gibson, Kendric Price, and Jevohn Shepherd laughed while looking at the media guide during media day in Ann Arbor, Mich., in 2006. Paul Sancya / AP

He was 32.

No one has ever been charged with his killing.

His mother, Carol Price, remembers the last time she saw him.

It was Friday night, and she cooked him one of his favorite dishes for dinner: sauteed chicken with onions, green peppers, rice, broccoli, and cheese.

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“That day, he came home, he said he was tired. ‘But it’s a good tired,’ he said,” she recalled.

Price told his mother he was going to stay in and take it easy that night.

“He said he was not going out at all,” she said.

But for some reason, after his mother went to sleep, he changed his mind and decided to stop by a garage at 12A Greenwood St., just down the street from his mother’s house. The garage was a known party spot,according to Globe reports at the time.

“It was a party, an after-hours type of thing,” she said.

That’s where he was when gunfire broke out shortly before 3 a.m.

Officers found his body riddled with gunshot wounds, according to police. A police report did not indicate that anyone else was wounded.

Yellow tape was put up after police responded to the fatal shooting on Greenwood Street in Dorchester on March 2, 2019. Nathan Klima for The Boston Globe

For a long time, Price kept thinking that if she hadonly been awake, shecould havestopped him before he went out the door.

“I beat myself up for a long time,” she said.

She still wonders who was at the party when her son was shot.

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After her son was killed, many people came to her to show their support while she was grieving, she said. But no one spoke about what actually transpired that night, leading her to assume that witnesses did not come forward and“no one told the police anything.”

On March 3, 2019, a family friend relit one of the candles that were placed in front of 12A Greenwood St. after Kendric Price was murdered there. Pat Greenhouse / The Boston Globe

When she spoke to investigators right after his death, she pleaded with themto find out what happened and arrest whoever was responsible for taking her son’s life.

“Please do not let this become a cold case,” she said. “I want justice for my son.”

Seven years later, she is still waiting.

“I’d love for someone who knows something to please come forward,” she said. “This perpetrator has probably killed other people since. He needs to be held accountable.”

Carol Price doesn’t like using the word “anniversary” to describe the date of her son’s death. For her, March 2 is a “trauma-versary,” a dayshe relives the pain and anguish she felt when she learned she had lost her son.

Carol Price posed for a portrait with memories of her son Kendric Price at her home in Dorchester. Craig F. Walker / The Boston Globe

Price had so many opportunities ahead of him and should have had a bright future, she said.

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She recalled how busy he always was with school, sports, and other extracurricular activities. And that’s exactly what she wanted: for him to pursue his interests and stay out of trouble.

“I always thought, I don’t ever want the streets to get my son,” she said. “And unfortunately he went to a party, and that’s what happened.”

Carol Price still lives on the same street where her son was murdered and has to pass by the garage where he spent his last moments.

She can’t help but wonder what could have been.

“Kendric came back to Boston,” she said. “He chose to come back and help those who were left behind.”

So she tries to turn her pain into something productive, by giving back to the community like Price did.

She continuesto run Big Business Network because it helps people and “reminds me of him,” she said.

Boston police say they continue to investigate Price’s murder.

“It’s an open and active investigation,” said John Boyle, a spokesperson for the Boston Police Department. “We urge anyone to come forward with information, no matter how little they think it is.”

Anyone with information about the murder of Kendric Price can call Boston police homicide detectives at 617-343-4470. Those wishing to leave an anonymous tip can call CrimeStoppers at 1-800-494-TIPS or text the word ‘TIP’ to 27463.

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Emily Sweeney can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her @emilysweeney and on Instagram @emilysweeney22.

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