Local

Mother of slain baseball player: 'We are broken'

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A college baseball player was shot and killed Sunday afternoon in a west Charlotte neighborhood.

As police search for Zack Finch’s killer, his family spoke to Channel 9, making an emotional plea.

[RELATED: $5,000 reward offered in slaying of college baseball player]

“The people who will miss him will never be the same,” his mother, Tara Finch, said. “We are broken and I just want someone to help us.”

Zack’s mother reached out to Channel 9, hoping someone in the public will respond to her cry for help.

“He took that smile everywhere with him. It never changed through the years,” his mother said.

Family members said Zack was trying to buy a cellphone he found on the mobile app Letgo.

[Photos of Zack Finch]

They said the gunman robbed and shot him.

The ambush would not have crossed his mind, that someone would do something like that to him, family members said.

(Click PLAY to watch Zack's sister talk about what kind of person he was.)

"He was my best friend. We did everything together. We had all these secrets and he was so good," his sister, Hannah, told Channel 9.

Police have not announced any arrests in the case.

“He would stop whatever he was doing to help everybody,” Hannah said. “He would always say, ‘What do you need? What can I do?’ And that's just unfair. He didn't deserve this.”

But Zack’s mother is hoping someone who knows the gunman will see the report and do the right thing.

“If there's someone who knows something, a mother or friend, or neighbor, or someone who saw something to please help us,” Tara Finch said.

(What to know: College baseball player slain while trying to buy cellphone using app)

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