MOUNT VERNON — Adolfo Figueroa grasped a black rosary in both hands as he remembered his stepbrother.

“I gave it to him, but I don’t know why he wasn’t wearing it,” Figueroa said Tuesday.

The rosary usually adorned the neck of 18-year-old Edgar Reyes-Bravo, a Mount Vernon High School student who was found dead in a Jeep Cherokee early Monday morning with a gunshot wound in his head.

Investigators are scrambling to piece together clues of the last hours of Reyes-Bravo’s life. But they have no suspects.

Police Lt. Chris Cammock said investigators did not find a gun in the Cherokee, ruling out suicide. They spent most of Tuesday tracking down friends, family and acquaintances of Reyes-Bravo for interviews.

Cammock said an autopsy will take place today.

Figueroa said Reyes-Bravo had planned to meet up with his girlfriend Sunday night. The two had met as students at Mount Vernon High School and had been dating almost a year.

Reyes-Bravo came to California at age 16 from Mexico with his mother. His father died from an illness when he was 8 years old, family members said. Reyes-Bravo, the oldest of four children, had recently moved to Blaine where he worked building greenhouses.

About a year ago, he moved to the Skagit Mobile Manor in Mount Vernon with his mother. He enrolled in Mount Vernon High School as a sophomore. Although shy at first, Reyes-Bravo quickly gained popularity with the girls during his one year at the school, his mother, Claudia Bravo said.

A friend translated for Claudia Bravo and Reyes-Bravo’s stepfather Mario Figueroa as they spoke to a Skagit Valley Herald reporter in their North 30th Street home.

Reyes-Bravo worked at the Mount Vernon Jack in the Box, helping to support his family. The young man managed to acquire a small savings in Mexico with the money he earned working a number of jobs after he arrived in America. He told his mother that he hoped to use the money to some day build a house for her in Mexico. But when his grandmother fell ill within the last year, he emptied the account to pay for her care, said Vanessa Serrano, a family friend.

“He was a happy, outgoing boy who minded his own business and didn’t get in trouble,” Figueroa said.

Mount Vernon High Principal Dave Anderson said Reyes-Bravo was “always respectful and had a great personality.”

“I don’t recall anything like this in my nine-year tenure,” Anderson said. “It’s just tragic.”

In Reyes-Bravo’s home, his family set up a small shrine in his honor.

A picture shows him smiling in a tuxedo. Four candles burn beside his photo, next to a porcelain set of praying hands. Behind the photo is a bouquet of fresh pink, white and red carnations he had bought for his stepfather on Father’s Day — the last day the teen spent alive.

His mother said Reyes-Bravo had never bought flowers before. The purchase was so unlike the teen, Mario Figueroa thought they were a joke at first.

Looking back, Figueroa said he thinks his stepson knew something.

“Not that he knew he was going to be killed, but that he had a feeling,” Figueroa said.

• Tahlia Ganser can be reached at 360-416-2148 or at .