Public plea issued to help solve Turlock teen's murder: "Dillon didn't deserve this"
TURLOCK — Turlock police are asking for the public's help tracking down a killer after a 17-year-old was stabbed to death one day after graduating high school.
A mother's agony was easy to see at a memorial for her son, Dillon Dooling.
As family and friends mourned his loss, police are calling on the community for help with a suspect search.
"Dillon didn't deserve this, and nobody deserves this," Pastor Morri Elliot said.
Elliott said Dooling was leaving a high school graduation party when the violent confrontation began. The teen's pastor says the teen died protecting his girlfriend.
"Dillon was a good young man. He was a loyal young man, and he was with his girlfriend Zoe that night and he was, from what I understand, he was protecting her," Elliot said.
Turlock police are now making a public plea for surveillance videos and photos from North Daubenberger Road from the night of the homicide — a clue that could help solve this homicide case.
"It was a party but then it escalated and it turned out more people showed up," one neighbor in the area told CBS13.
Neighbors say people were turned away from the Turlock house party because it was so packed, and that led to Dooling's deadly fight. Police say he was attacked by a group in their teens or early twenties.
"If anybody knows anything about the boys, the group that did this, let the Turlock Police Department know," Elliot said.
According to his family's GoFundMe page, Dooling had just graduated from Pittman High School and was planning on attending Modesto Junior College in the fall.