Milwaukee teen dead at tow lot: ‘Could that life have been saved?’

MILWAUKEE - Milwaukee Common Council members questioned police on Thursday, July 20 after the body of James Stokes, 17, was found in an SUV days after it was towed.

The 17-year-old was in a car on June 1 that crashed into a tree, but his body wasn't found until June 5 after days of searching and pleading from his family for help to find him.

Kina King, Stokes' mother, said she tried to file a missing person's report shortly after the crash but was told her son wasn't gone long enough. She knew he was with a friend that night, and the friend was injured in a crash near 91st and Fond du Lac.

James Stokes

King said they searched the crash area, made flyers and later filed a report.

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Milwaukee police said the SUV was stolen and a teen boy at the scene was injured and taken to the hospital, but Stokes was nowhere to be found.

King was with the police again when she received the devastating news.

"I sat down, and he said, 'Ma'am, we found your son. He's decomposed,'" said King. "I said, 'What?'"

Stokes' body was found in the back of an SUV at the 38th and Lincoln tow lot.

"Would that person – my mind straight went to, in that situation, and we won't know until the autopsy – could that life have been saved?" said Alderwoman Marina Dimitrijevic. "Because we won't know right now."

Prosecutors, the medical examiner and MPD's Internal Affairs are investigating.