Julio Foolio's Mother Blames Rapping for his Death: 'We will have justice'

Sandrikas Mays vividly remembers the early morning hours of June 23 when she got the call that her son, Charles Jones, was dead.

"I got a call 4 a.m. in the morning," Mays said. "I was already [awake] because I had already talked to him maybe 12 a.m., 1 a.m. when he texted. And when I got the call from one of his close friends who told me that there was a shooting, I was like 'Okay, I got to get there. What happened? Where is that?'"

The friend told Mays that all of the victims, including her son, also known as drill rapper Julio Foolio, were taken to a hospital. Mays said she was not concerned yet, but never expected what happened next.

"I'm like 'Okay, everything is okay,' because he had been shot at a couple of times," Mays said. "All the times he's been shot at, I never thought he would pass away from a shooting, even though he had been shot at a lot of times. So by the time I went to go pick up his aunt, another friend called and told me the bad news. And I just couldn't take it."

Jones was fatally shot in the parking lot of the Holiday Inn Tampa North while celebrating his 26th birthday. Three others were injured in the shooting.

Mays spoke to Newsweek about her son's life, career and tragic death. She said Jones started rapping when he was eight years old.

"I was very supportive of his rap career, even him performing at my job at a nursing facility on Mother's Day," Mays said.

She helped to build his career when he was first starting out.

"I sent Charles off when he was maybe about 16, 17, on a Megabus to Atlanta to interview with DJ Smallz Eyes," Mays said. "And I often took him and his friend to Altanta to pass out CDs and things of that sort. So I was very active, very active in his career so he can stay out of trouble, do what he wanted to do, what he loved to do."

Mays often advised her son on important decisions.

"Everything went through me. Any decision, any record labels that contacted him, he will always contact me to ask me, 'Hey, can you look over this?'" Mays said.

As much as Mays supported her son, she acknowledged that rap resulted in various attacks on her son and herself.

"We have to understand that Charles wasn't getting shot at because he killed somebody, because he robbed somebody, because anything like that," Mays said. "That's not what happened. All this happened because of rapping."

After she was shot eight times at close range, Mays asked her son to stop rapping.

"I was telling him, 'It's your rapping. You need to stop it,'" Mays said.

Jones was angered by the attack, but he did not want to give up his dream.

"He was mad, he [was] upset, and of course he made a song about it," Mays said.

While the two had a close relationship, Mays said there were times when she did not condone her son's actions.

"This has been going on for over a decade, and I talked to him about these things, but these kids do what they want to do," Mays said. "You can't tell them anything. Even as an adult, you can't. He'll listen to some things that I say, but he did what he wanted to do."

Beyond his career, Mays hopes her son is remembered for the way he gave back and helped others. He often donated money to individuals and organizations in his community and spoke to children at local schools, Mays said.

"I want Charles to be remembered as a person, not as just like a dog on a street or anything like that, because he did do some good things for the community. He touched a lot of people's lives," Mays said. "I have thousands of messages, good messages, all from people from Africa, from Russia, U.K., that told me that his music helped them cope with a lot of things."

In a recent Instagram post, Mays teased an upcoming documentary that will tell the story of Jones' life. She says fans can expect to see the film in September.

"It's going to talk about his life, how he grew up, his rap career, how it started, his family," Mays said. "Charles grew up in the church. He always was with his grandmother, who passed away as well, on his dad's side. So we're going to be highlighting some of the good stuff. We're going to be highlighting things that happened that people don't know about."

While no suspects have been arrested in Jones' death, Mays said officials are working hard to solve the case.

"The FBI detectives in Tampa, they are working every day. They are getting good leads and things of that sort," Mays said. "So of course I want justice for him, and we will have justice for him. I know for a fact we will have justice for Charles. They are working day in, day out from the time I got to the scene."

She hopes that her son's death can make a difference in the violence surrounding the industry.

"I just want everybody to change who is in this drill scene, because it's never going to get any better," Mays said. "It's never going to get good because you have the commentators and the blogs that [are] going to boost it up. They boost it up and unfortunately, things like this [are] the end result."

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