Teen Found Dead on Indianapolis Northeast Side After Week-Long Disappearance

Traevion Pirtle's family had spent Friday handing out flyers and canvassing Indianapolis streets, having driven in from Milwaukee that morning with a $10,000 reward on the table and hope still intact. By that evening, hope was gone. Around 8:45 p.m. on March 13, IMPD officers conducted a death investigation in the 10000 block of East 38th Street, off German Church Road on the city's northeast side. The 18-year-old had been missing for six days.

Pirtle was last seen March 7 at a friend's house in the 3600 block of Cedar Pine Lane on Indianapolis' far east side. He was reported missing two days later, on Monday, March 9, when IMPD put out a public appeal stating he may be in need of medical attention. The department circulated his description: 5'10", 128 pounds, goldish-brown dreadlocked hair, brown eyes, a dermal piercing under one eye, and neck tattoos, last seen wearing black Adidas pants with white stripes and a black hoodie with red lettering.

Family members told reporters the circumstances of his disappearance were immediately alarming. According to his relatives, the friend's family said Pirtle had run out of the house that day, leaving his shoes, phone, and car behind. His body was found near Fervent Prayer Ministries, a church at the intersection of East 38th Street and German Church Road, multiple relatives and family friends gathered near the scene said on March 14.

His aunt Sarah Hawkins spoke to 13News Friday afternoon, before the discovery, capturing the family's desperation in raw terms. "We're doing everything we can to find him. He needs to come home because we can't sleep, we can't eat, we can't think, we can't do none of that. Like it's crazy...it's sickening. It's sickening," Hawkins said.

The family painted a picture of a young man whose life was pointed forward. Pirtle had just gotten accepted into college. He worked multiple jobs to help cover bills at his Indianapolis home, where his younger siblings looked to him as "the man of the house." He was also pursuing music, working on his craft as a rapper. His 22-year-old brother Gary, who lives in Milwaukee, described Traevion as a deeply spiritual person. "The memory is just so uplifting," Gary Pirtle said. "This ain't nobody that was out here in the streets." He said his younger brother was a believer in God whose strong spirit at times felt like "too much for this universe."

IMPD is conducting a death investigation. No cause of death has been released, and no arrests have been reported. The circumstances surrounding how Pirtle died remain under investigation.