TORONTO -- The mother of a teenager killed in an intentional hit-and-run said the driver of the vehicle treated her son like an animal.
Matthew Dreaver, 16, was run down by an SUV in the Woodbine Avenue and O’Conner Area on Oct. 7. He was dragged under the vehicle before being left for dead on the road.
He was transported to hospital without vital signs but died a short time after.
On Thursday, graphic surveillance video was released by homicide detectives showing Dreaver being dragged by the SUV. Another person, who police said was Dreaver's 14-year-old friend, can be seen running away from the vehicle as Dreaver is being dragged.
The SUV then turns around in the parking lot and passes Dreaver’s lifeless body before fleeing.
CTV News Toronto has decided to release only a portion of the video because of its graphic nature.
"I'm living everyday missing my son and I don’t know what to do without him," Dreaver's mother, Kelly Jones, told CTV News Toronto on Thursday.
"He was my boy, he was just becoming a young man. I will never see him with a girlfriend, I will never see him growing up, I will never see him getting taller, I will never see anything of him."
"They treated him like a piece of animal, like they were hitting nothing. They had no conscience, they don’t care about him. They left him like a little dog on the street."
Jones said she now wakes up about 20 times a night thinking of her son and will start counselling next week because she isn't eating properly.
"I'm angry," Jones said. "I just don't know how these people are living their life every day."
Police said after Dreaver was struck, the SUV fled the area westbound on Bracebridge Avenue, turned northbound on Woodbine Avenue before turning eastbound on O’Connor Drive and then eastbound on St. Clair Avenue East.
The vehicle is believed to be a dark blue or black 2007 to 2012 Hyundai Santa Fe with possible front-end damage, police said.
According to investigators, Dreaver and his friend became involved in “an interaction” with two occupants of a motor vehicle that was parked near Woodbine Avenue and O’Connor Drive before the incident.
"Several minutes later the occupants of that motor vehicle, that they had that initial interaction with, located the males and there was a second interaction," Toronto police Det. Leslie Dunkley said in October.
Anyone with information is asked to contact police at 416-808-7400 or Crime Stoppers anonymously at 416-222-TIPS.
