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C.J. Wilkerson Memorialized By Friends, Family

RALEIGH (WRAL) -- Family members have set up a makeshift memorial at the site where the body of C.J. Wilkerson was found this week.

Flowers, balloons, and a stuffed animal were placed in a wooded area behind an old strip mall in South Raleigh by family, friends and strangers.

The family said it needed to see the site to have some closure.

"There is nothing C.J. did to deserve this -- nothing," C.J.'s father Clarence Wilkerson said Friday.

Friend Stephen Harper was paired with C.J. as part of the Big Brothers-Big Sisters program.

The mentoring program brought the unlikely pair together from two different worlds and two different generations.

Harper remembers many good times with C.J., including the time he introduced the boy to stilts.

"C.J. had never seen stilts. He wasn't going to try them, but as soon as I turned my back, he wanted to try them. And he mastered them," Harper remembers.

Harper has a little red book with mementos from each outing they enjoyed during the six months they spent together last year.

He also has a red plastic bracelet to treasure. "It's something that C.J. made himself for me. It's something I can keep with me and remember," he says.

Harper continues to mourn what might have been.

"I guess that's often the thought when you lose a child -- the great potential that may have been out there that's lost now," Harper says.

Investigators believe the nine-year-old Wake Forest boy was murdered after he was abducted back in January.

Meanwhile, the last adult seen with C.J. sits in the Wake County Jail.

C.J.'s family says Derrick Glover made a plea agreement with prosecutors earlier this week. They say Glover agreed to tell officials where C.J's body was in exchange for not facing the death penalty.

Reporters: Len Besthoff, Ken Smith
OnLine Producer: Julie Moos

UPDATE:

CJ's remains were found in a suitcase in the woods behind a shopping mall in Garner, North Carolina. Glover pleaded guilty to the murder and was sentenced to 45 years to life in prison. He said he killed CJ because he was angry at the child's mother.