MiddletownJournal.com

DAYTON — Jenny Nelson was the devoted mother of "the smartest little boy you'd ever meet," one of Nelson's best friends said Monday, Jan. 5, three days after Nelson's brutal murder Friday night in Harrison Twp.

"I used to joke that as a 4-year-old, he'd beat me at Trivial Pursuit," Veronica Rice of Columbus said Monday, Jan. 5. "He's smart and he already has a sense of humor; he's like a little adult."

Montgomery County Sheriff Phil Plummer concurs, saying Monday the boy's smarts played a key role in capturing his mother's alleged killer Sunday evening.

"I am very impressed with how he handled himself," Plummer said. "He was able to describe the suspect, tell us where he (the boy) lived and gave us his phone number. You won't find many 4-year-olds that can do that."

Authorities have charged Charlie W. Myers, 22, of Columbus, with aggravated murder. He is in custody in the Franklin County Jail, awaiting extradition to Montgomery County.

Investigators believe Myers drove to Nelson's home on Redder Avenue on Friday in a Honda that Nelson and her husband reported stolen Dec. 17 in Columbus while they attended a concert. After killing Nelson, who was home alone with her son, Myers took the boy and later dropped him off at a rest stop near Springfield, where the boy told a Maryland couple who found him, "Somebody killed my mom."

The boy's father, Eddie Nelson, talked about his son's intelligence Monday morning on NBC's "Today" show.

"He's a very sharp kid," Eddie Nelson said. "He's like a sponge, he just soaks everything up. My wife, especially, insisted that we work on him learning his address, learning the phone numbers, just important things ... a lot of things people would take for granted and it saved him."

Nelson said his son had not talked much about the ordeal.

"He's still terrified," Nelson said. "I don't know that he fully understands what's going on. He's just in total shock right now."

Nelson said he would not take his son back to the house where he had witnessed his mother's death.

"I'm doing everything I can to bring a little bit of home to him," Nelson said. "We're going to see counselors, and I'm going to take advice from them and just try to keep moving forward.

"It's going to hurt, but it's not going to help (the boy) if we're just constantly distraught about it. We have to try to get over it."

Veronica Rice reacted to news of Myers' arrest with cautious optimism.

"I sure hope it's the right person," said Rice, who grew up with Nelson in Huber Heights and stayed in frequent contact with her friend.

Nelson was supposed to attend Rice's grandmother's funeral Saturday morning, Rice said. When she didn't show, "we didn't know why."

Rice described Nelson as a 5-foot-7 blonde who was "smart, funny, sarcastic and really sweet," a mother and wife who gave up school at Wright State University and work at a local Kroger to devote attention to her family full-time.

"She wanted to be a mother and housewife, that's what she wanted to do," Rice said of her fellow 1997 Wayne High School graduate. "She had what she wanted in life, up to this point."

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-7408 or agottschlich@DaytonDailyNews.com.

The Associated Press and staff writer Lucas Sullivan contributed to this story.