The teen who was exonerated of murdering classmate Derrion Albert will not return to the troubled school, the Sun-Times reports.
Eugene Bailey won't return to Fenger High School in Roseland because his mother fears his reputation has been irreparably tarnished by his arrest in last month's brutal, videotaped beating death.
"He can't go there. It's not going to be the same," his mother, Ava Greyer told the Sun-Times. "They're not going to look at my baby the same."
The Cook County state's attorney's office dropped a murder charge Monday against Bailey, one of the four teens arrested after Albert died Sept. 24 and the one prosecutors originally thought had delivered the fatal blow.
Family members insisted all along that Bailey was nowhere near the scene.
"While the charge against Bailey was brought in good faith based on witness accounts and identifications, additional information has developed during the ongoing investigation that warranted dismissal of the murder charge against Bailey at this time," Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez said in a statement released Monday night.
After he was released, Bailey told reporters he was good friends with Albert and expressed his regret at not being able to attend the funeral. His mother called the murder charge that had kept her son in jail for three weeks despicable and demanded an apology.
"I want to hear them apologize," Greyer told WGN. "They were quick to label him a murderer. I was steady telling them where my son was and that wasn't my son on that tape."
Bailey's release also allowed Greyer to keep her Chicago Housing Authority home. CHA officials had delivered a termination notice to Greyer two days after her son's arrest, citing a policy of ending leases of families in federally subsidized housing if members have been charged with violent crimes. On Tuesday, they rescinded it. Greyer told the Sun-Times that her son lives with his grandmother in Englewood, but four other children live with her.