CORNELIUS, N.C. — A teenager from Cornelius drowned in a South Carolina lake last week. Channel 9′s Almiya White spoke with his family as they opened up about the events that led to his death.
“He says, ‘Hey girl, I’m on vacation.’ I say, ‘I know, you having a good time?’ He said, ‘Yes mommy, I’m with my friends,’” Ana Simone, his mother, said.
This was their conversation Thursday night, just hours before he went missing.
Ana Simone says her son, Louiz Pontez-Farias, took a trip with his friends to Lake Hartwell in Anderson, South Carolina.
But she didn’t realize Thursday night’s phone call would be the last time she heard her son’s voice.
“I said, ‘OK I love you.’ He said, ‘I love you too, I’ll see you tomorrow.’ And tomorrow never came,” she told us.
Louiz, who preferred to go by Luis, was reported missing on June 30th while at the lake.
His sister, Emily Pontes-Farias, says she remembers when she got the phone call.
“As we’re driving there, I just felt it hitting my stomach that something was off,” Emily said. “Once the sun started going down, I knew he wasn’t coming home.”
The next day, Anderson County Coroner’s office found the 18-year-old body five feet from a boat dock in the area. He was pronounced dead at the scene due to drowning.
Emily and Ana said they both shared a closeness that made the death even harder for them.
“We were glued to the hip. If you saw me, he was there,” Emily said.
Luis would have been a senior at Lake Norman High School this upcoming school year.
His post-grad plan was to move to New York City to be a model.
“He loved makeup. He’ll pick my clothes. He’ll look at me and say ‘Come on girl’,” Emily said. “It didn’t matter who you were, he loved you before he even met you.”
Emily says Luis was her light, a light she says she plans to make sure still shines.
“I just have to live up this world happy for him because that’s what he wants,” she said.
There’s a GoFundMe to help with funeral costs.
(WATCH: Playground opens in memory of drowning victim in Mooresville)
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