A University of Virginia football player was on the phone with his mother moments before the tragic gunfire that took his life four weeks ago, his parents revealed Wednesday.
D’Sean Perry, a Cavaliers linebacker, was one of three athletes shot on a bus returning to campus following a field trip.
Perry was chatting with his mother as they approached campus at 10:06 p.m. ET Nov. 13, according to his parents, Happy and Sean Perry.
His parents reported that minutes after they hung up, social media exploded with reports of an active shooter on the Charlottesville campus.
“He said they were on the way back almost to campus and his phone was going dead,” said his mother.
“Then we started getting tweets … from social media about that there was an active shooter at the school.”
D’Sean Perry didn’t call back, but his parents tried to keep their spirits up, believing their son’s phone just wasn’t working.
“Dreadful, to say the least,” the victim’s mother described the torturous wait. “I had called my sister and let her know what was going on. I just needed everyone to pray.”
Then, around 2:30 a.m., Perry’s parents received a heartbreaking phone call informing them that their son was one of three students who had been fatally shot.
“I heard my wife on the phone. Once she got the call, she just broke down crying,” Perry’s father stated. “All I could do is run around the house and say ‘no,’ and we just cried together.”
D’Sean Perry, Devin Chandler, and Lavel Davis Jr. were killed about 30 hours after the team’s game against the University of Pittsburgh.
It was Virginia’s penultimate game of the season since the team decided to cancel the final two games in the aftermath of the shootings.
Christopher Darnell Jones Jr., a former Virginia football player, has been arrested and charged.
Perry’s parents have stated that they intend to participate in the national push for gun safety measures.
“If we don’t do something about it, it will continue,” Sean Perry remarked.”We’re just a voice. We’re just two voices just trying to make people aware of what happened to our son.”
“We’re lost, but we’re not empty,” Sean Perry continued. “I know my son is right here as we speak.”
D’Sean Perry, a studio art major from South Florida, was slated to graduate in January.
He had two more years of athletic eligibility, and his parents stated he was debating between attending graduate school and continuing to play football.
