Devastated family finds missing man dead on side of road in Chicago's south suburbs

DIXMOOR, Ill. (CBS) – A missing Chicago man was found dead on the side of the road in the south suburbs on Wednesday – family members said they made the gruesome discovery.

Aaron Neal's family has been searching for the 24-year-old since his disappearance on Saturday. On Wednesday afternoon, his family said they found his body on the side of the road in Dixmoor.

Neal's family was torn apart after they said the search for him came to a devastating end near Dixmoor Playfield.

“And I saw family members running on the left side of the street screaming, 'We found him! We found him! We found him!'” said Brandy Martin, a family friend.

Martin helped organize the search for Neal. She even posted daily updates about the efforts to find the 24-year-old.

“They started searching on Monday,” Martin said.

Martin said several bullet casings were found on Thornton Road near Ashland Avenue – not far from where Neal's body was allegedly found.

“From what I could see, there were maybe two to three shots in the back,” Martin said. “They found him themselves in the middle of the street – not the police, the family found him.”

The family said Neal was last seen on surveillance video Saturday evening leaving his grandmother's home in the West Englewood neighborhood. He got into a white car and his family reported him missing after not hearing from him.

“To be out here for four days looking for my nephew and then to find him right where we were looking for four days is disappointing,” Neal's aunt Shaka Ford said, “because we were out here with the police.”

Neal's family said a major break in the case occurred after a fisherman found Neal's phone in recent days.

“I’m just broken,” said Neal’s sister, Aliyaah Simons. “I'm sad that my brother – I'm sad that I'll never see my brother again.”

““It shouldn’t have taken this long to find him,” Ford said.

The Cook County Medical Examiner's Office will officially identify Neal's body.