Mother of missing Buffalo child dies not knowing what happened to her son

Ponzo died Sept. 18 at Sisters Hospital after her health rapidly deteriorated. She was 48.

“She struggled,” said Kareema Morris, founder of Bury the Violence, who had supported her and helped in spreading awareness about Jaylen’s disappearance. “She did the best she knew how. She loved her children.”

Jaylen was last seen leaving his home on Warren Avenue in the Broadway-Fillmore district, near the Central Terminal. He was believed to be headed to a convenience store on Broadway and Sears streets – Sears Food Store. He never returned.

Then three months later, Jaylen’s older brother, Jawaan Griffin was killed in a shooting on Memorial Drive. Jawaan was 18.

“He was shot and killed steps away from his home,” Morris said.

With one son missing and the other slain, Ponzo was left emotionally devastated.

“It frustrated her,” Ponzo said. “She felt helpless. He was shot in broad daylight in a heavily populated neighborhood.”

Ponzo was angry with the police for not doing more to solve either of the cases.

Over the last three years, Morris and other community leaders led search parties and awareness campaigns to try to turn up clues to Jaylen’s whereabouts. They held vigils on Jaylen’s birthday and on the date of his disappearance and put up a billboard with his photo. In the summer of 2022, Buffalo police conducted a new search and used cadaver dogs but they found no trace of Jaylen.

This year, the National Center for Missing & Exploited…