23-Year-Old Man Last Seen on Christmas Eve Still Missing: Family

A South Side family is asking for the public’s help in the search for their son who was last seen on Christmas Eve.

Iaron Brooks, 23, went missing Dec. 24 from the city’s Avalon Park neighborhood near 81st and Avalon, according to family. Friends of Brooks told the family that between noon and 1 p.m., he was seen getting into a car with a group of unknown men.

“There's nothing that I can do but to plead and ask somebody that knows something to help me and give me my son,” Bonnette Jernigan, Brooks’ mother, said.

Other than a couple of cryptic and anonymous phone calls that did not lead anywhere, the family has heard nothing on the whereabouts of Brooks.

“He has not been on social media,” Jernigan said. “He has not been on Twitter. He has everything, Facebook, everything.”

Brooks is also a father of a 3-year-old and is described by family members as a devoted dad who stepped up as the head of the household after his own father died. Brooks’ family has not lost hope that their son is still alive, but his mother is ready for closure.

“All I want is my son,” Jernigan said. “Either way, so we can move on.”