Corey Ethan Jones

Corey Ethan Jones was born on 18 February 2005 in Fort Bragg, NC at Womack Army Medical Center to parents Eric and Sonja, and big brother Eric II. From the beginning, he was a special child. Only a few days old he already was crying tears, what is normally unusual for newborns. He had beautiful dark brown eyes, which everyone loved.

Corey spent the first 4 years of his life in Fort Bragg, NC before his father was being stationed in Ft. Story, VA where he spent the next 3.5 years. He loved going to the beach, the zoo, and playing with his friends. From the day he was born until the age of 5 years he was enjoying to stay at home with his mom. He started Kindergarten at Birdneck Elementary in Virginia Beach, VA. In 2012 his father retired from the US Army, after serving for 20 years honorably. In July 2012, Corey and his family moved to Mooresville, NC to be around family.

Once settled in their new house, Corey attended Park View Elementary and East Mooresville Intermediate School. He disliked school, but he would go without any arguments every day. Corey was a smart child, nonetheless he didn’t want to apply his knowledge in tests at school. Our little troublemaker didn’t want to sit still at times and often disrupted class talking to his best friend Sam.

Corey started to play baseball in Spring 2015 with the Mooresville Recreation Department. He had a kind of love-hate relationship with it, but that didn’t hinder him to play it every season they offered it.  Another favorite of his was attending Camp Corral at Camp Hanes in King, NC for one week during summer break. 

Monday, 25 July 2016, him, his brother, and mom went grocery shopping in the morning. He was not fond of joining in on the weekly grocery shopping trip. Corey rather wanted to ride his bike or play video games. During the shopping trip, he picked one of his favorite drinks and a snack. After coming home, he went straight to the TV, turned it on to watch one of his shows. Ate a pizza for lunch and played some video games, before going outside for a little bit. After dinner, him and his brother Eric rode their bikes, Corey just gotten a new one 2 days prior, around the neighborhood until it was time to come in and settle down.

Corey chose to watch TV in the master bedroom while Eric and their mom were watching TV in the family room. His dad was not home due to his job as a truck driver.  During the whole evening, he only complained once that his tummy was hurting, which is not unusual for children to have a tummy ache. Between 10 pm and 10:30 pm his mom sent him to bed, since she had to get up early to go to college. 

At around 8 am in the morning he had already passed away in his sleep. After the initial autopsy, where they did not find any cause, we were left with no answers why our healthy 11-year old son died. That day we were told the result by the detectives we did some research on the internet and found the SUDC foundation.

We contacted the SUDC Foundation to find answers to our questions. They were and still are helpful to us and all the other families that have lost a child to unknown causes. They have provided us with crucial support services, information and access to research. To be able to talk to others who lived through the same ordeal helped us to not feel lonesome during all of this.

We are planning on starting to host an annual 5k run/1-mile walk event to raise awareness and funds to help further the research on SUDC and also in memory of our beloved Corey.