How to Help Family of Teen Killed in Accidental Shooting

ROUND LAKE PARK, IL - David Graham, a teenager who died in an accidental shooting on his 19th birthday, is being remembered as a kind and humble man.

Jenny Shibovich, a longtime friend of the Graham family, said David was the type of person who was always there if you ever needed help. He graduated from Round Lake High School last year where he was a football player.

A YouCaring page has been set up to help pay for funeral costs for David.

"The Graham' s are good people. They are family and friends to all who meet them. Right now, they need my help and your help. So I am reaching out," Katherine Andrade, of Round Lake Park, writes on the YouCaring page, which has brought in about $300 as of Thursday morning. People can also donate money on the meal train website set up by Andrade, who is a friend of the Graham family.

Shibovich, 35, who recently moved from Round Lake to Las Vegas, has watched David grow up as she has been a friend of the Graham family for 15 years. Among his most talents was his artistic ability, she said.

"His artworks was phenomenal," she told Patch.

David used charcoal, pencil and colored pencils to create his art and would create a portrait "of anyone who asked him," De'Andrea Graham, 21, of Chicago, told the Lake County News-Sun. He drew these portraits of Shibovich's dogs.

Graham was also a photographer and worked on automobiles, D'Andrea Graham told the Lake County News-Sun. He was thinking about going to the College of Lake County to study automotives and his sister said she wasn't sure if he was thinking about studying graphics as well.

David Graham was accidentally shot and killed on his 19th birthday this past Monday by his friend, authorities said. Graham had been out with a group of friends celebrating his birthday. At one point, Graham and his friend, Joey Gonzalez, 19, of Round Lake, got out of their car and began firing a sawed-off shotgun into the air. A short time later, that same firearm, which Gonzalez was holding at the time while sitting in the backseat, went off inside the vehicle while Graham was driving. Graham died of a gunshot wound to the head at about 12:45 a.m. Monday.

Gonzalez has been charged with involuntary manslaughter in connection with David's death.

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Other than D'Andrea, David Graham had two younger brothers, Joshua and Levi. Shibovich said all David wanted to do was take care of his younger brothers and was his "father's right hand man."

"Those two were inseparable," said Shibovich of David and his father, Everton.

His mother, Denese, had been hospitalized days before the shooting due to heart issues, Katherine Andrade, a friend of the family, wrote on a Meal Train website set up to help the Graham family following their loss. The night of the shooting, David had planned to head to the hospital with flowers for his mom, D'Andrea Graham told the Lake County News-Sun.

"(David) was going to drop off his girlfriend and then pick up some friends, get something to eat and then pick up some flowers and come to the hospital," she said. "He had sent me a text message, and that was the last time I heard from him."

Photo: Submitted by Jenny Shibovich