It was a beautiful spring day in Columbia, and as the community celebrated Mule Day, a few miles away, family and friends gathered to remember two lives lost far too soon.
Pictures and memories were all they have of 15-year-old Chris Sawyers and 17-year-old Charles Poe, or Peanut as everyone knew him. The two cousins were killed in a car crash on Theta Pike Thursday.
"They was closer than probably me and Peanut could ever be," Anthony Gay said. Gay is Peanut's older brother. "They always said we'll ride together, we're going to die together. The day the accident happened I got a text message from him at 11:58 asking if I had a pair of blue jean pants that he could borrow, and that was the last message I ever received from him," Gay said through tears.
The crash happened just before 12:30 p.m. Authorities said speed was a factor.
"Please guys, as everybody starts driving, slow down, listen to your parents. This is not easy for nobody in the world, and I hope no other family has to go through what we went through," Chris' sister, Amber Bell, said.
Among those left brokenhearted were members of the teens' youth group.
"This church group is like a family you know," Chase Roberts said. "These people not being here, it changes everybody's lives."
Spirited, funny, adventurous, that's how Chris and Peanut will be remembered as a family and an entire community work to cope with this loss.
"To know that I'm not going to get to see them ever again, here at least, its unbelievable, and I can't even wrap my head around it that they're gone," youth group member, Noah Jones said.
"I wish I could tell him how much I loved him, as well as Chris, and it hurts knowing that I never got to tell either one of them how much I really cared for them and how much I appreciated them for being here," said Gay.
Funeral arrangements for the teens were being finalized.
