TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV) – Clayton Detant was supposed to go to a game with his brother, Jaden. Tickets to the Howard vs. FAMU game remained unused after Jaden was killed on January 12, 2025.
It’s been one year since FAMU student Jaden Detant was shot at his off-campus apartment and his family is still seeking answers.
The Tallahassee Police Department said it’s an open and active investigation, an unsatisfying answer for a family still reeling.
“It’s almost as if he’s being forgotten,” Clayton Detant said. “Not within our hearts or within our home, but it seems as if the world has kept spinning and we’re still waiting, a year later.”
Jaden’s family said he was in his room at his off-campus apartment when he was shot. After they drove up from Homestead, the saw Jaden’s belongings were in trash bags, the apartment having already been cleaned.
“One of the last conversations that we have, whenever you’re inside your room, you keep your door closed. You keep your door locked,” Detant’s mother, Michaelle Felix, said. “So, for someone to have access to him, the person must have knocked.”
In March 2025, the family passed out flyers, seeking new leads in the case. Jaden’s uncle said a tipster did call him, but it’s unclear if they’re legit.
“She say, ‘I realize it could have been me that night.’ And then she say somebody come knock at her window and then she didn’t open. When she looked to the window, she saw the person had a gun in his hand,” Gerald Boulin explained.
Boulin said the caller, a fellow college student like Detant, made an effort to find his number either off of a flyer or by viewing WCTV’s story.
Either way, he referred her to TPD, just in case.
“She said that she told them about it and then she was not received well meaning that (the police) said they didn’t want to believe what she was saying,” Boulin said, re-counting a phone call from the tipster after her meeting with a detective. “And then she said it’s like they were taking her information lightly.”
A TPD spokesperson declined to comment on the tip or the family’s characterization, instead referencing to the statement that the case remains “open and active.”
Felix said a detective eventually told her the tipster’s account was unreliable, that the car the tipster saw was from UberEATS and that the tipster might be mentally disturbed.
“And when I received that call, I had thought God had answered my prayer. And then we start developing some type of hope. And it was crushing to me that she said that she was not received well,” Boulin said.
On Monday, the family set a new memorial at Jaden’s apartment. They hold vigil, watching and waiting, hoping for any news from investigators.
“Until now, they said they don’t have any leads,” Felix said. “They don’t know what happened. They don’t have any answers for me.”
The Detant family made an eight hour drive from Homestead to Tallahassee to share Jaden’s story. They hope they won’t have to make the drive anymore once the case is solved.
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