Wanda Cooper-Jones | Ahmaud Arbery | Sources: Facebook/wanda.cooper.29269 | Facebook/Blavity
Ahmaud Arbery’s Mom Recalls the Day He Was Killed, Sharing New Details 5 Years Later
Aside from revealing new details, the bereaved mother has since fostered a partnership with Adidas in the years following her son’s devastating death.
No one will ever forget the tragically fateful day on February 23, 2020, when 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery was shot down by two men while the young man was simply out for a jog.
Five years after his life was brutally taken, his grieving mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, has recounted that painful day, divulging new information about what her son was going through.
In a recent exclusive interview with People magazine, Cooper-Jones also divulged the emotional weight she’s carried since losing her son. “He was actually having some mental challenges,” she revealed, noting that while Arbery had moved out, something seemed different and amiss.
“I’m not sure what happened to my baby, but he was going through something and I saw it and I thought it was my job as mom to let him walk through it [sic],” Cooper-Jones added. Running, she said, had always been more than just a physical routine for Arbery.
“Ahmaud would run every day, and when he would finish running, he would come in,” she recalled. “I think he used running as a sense [sic] of therapy.” Despite the unseen battles he had been facing, Cooper-Jones remembered her son as a bright spirit who filled their home with laughter.
“Ahmaud was a jokester. He’s a funny, good, loving guy. If he left the room on me, even the house, the last thing he would say is, ‘I love you.’ And the last time that I actually saw my son alive, that’s the last thing he told me,” she disclosed.
That tender final moment has stayed with her in the years since, echoing through a grief that never truly fades. “They’re being punished for what they did,” Cooper-Jones said of the men who took Arbery’s life, “but I’m being punished every day because my son’s not here.”
She continued, “It may have happened years ago, but it’s not a day that comes, [sic] I don’t think about my son and the way his life ended. I think I struggled a lot with the way he was killed. He was alone, he was scared, and all he wanted to do was go home.”
For Cooper-Jones, the holidays are especially painful. “After Thanksgiving, there’s Christmas, then after Christmas, I have to relive the days that it actually happened in February, so my days are kind of dark, but I’m pushing through,” she stated.
Through her pain, however, Cooper-Jones has also found purpose — a mission fueled by the overwhelming support of the community and the unexpected partnership of a global brand. In the wake of her son’s death, she joined forces with Adidas, which became a major supporter of the Ahmaud Arbery Foundation, created in his memory.
The foundation, supported by Adidas, has since awarded $75,000 in scholarships to young men at Arbery’s former high school and hosts a leadership summit and year-long mentorship program for school-aged boys.
Additionally, each February 23, again with the support of Adidas, a commemorative run is held — a 2.23-mile journey in honor of the date Arbery died. “It’s kind of dark in the morning,” Cooper-Jones noted, “but just coming out and seeing people that are still running with Maud, it’s very, very rewarding.”
As part of the brand’s Community Archives initiative, Cooper-Jones was recently featured in a zine spotlighting cultural figures and leaders who have transformed grief into movement and change.
Even so, healing has been far from linear. It took over a year before she found the strength to watch the graphic footage of her son’s final moments — footage that galvanized a nation.
“We went through state trials in October of 2021, and just before that, I wanted to make myself familiar with what the video was all about, so I watched it prior to going into trial. We didn’t get justice because I saw the video. We got justice because we all saw that video,” she explained.
While she and her children (Arbery’s siblings) continue therapy, Cooper-Jones finds true hope in the legislative changes Arbery’s case inspired — from the implementation of a Hate Crime Law to the removal of Georgia’s citizen’s arrest statute.
“If I could tell Wanda from 2020 anything,” she reflected, “I’d tell her not to give up. I’d tell her to give yourself grace and to allow people around you to help. You can’t take this journey alone.”
That fateful 2020 morning, Arbery had simply laced up his sneakers and stepped out for a run — a daily ritual that offered him peace, clarity, and a way to process the silent struggles he had been carrying. But that run through the quiet streets of Satilla Shores in Brunswick, Georgia, became the final moments of his life.
According to police reports, Gregory McMichael spotted Arbery jogging past his home and claimed he resembled a suspect involved in neighborhood break-ins.
He alerted his son, Travis McMichael, and the two armed themselves — one with a .357 Magnum handgun, the other with a shotgun — and jumped into their truck. A third man, William “Roddie” Bryan, later joined the chase in his own vehicle, recording the pursuit and the devastating confrontation that would follow.
Arbery was unarmed, dressed in athletic wear, and doing nothing more than running through a neighborhood. The video later revealed him trying to avoid the armed men, darting away before being cut off.
In a final desperate attempt to escape, he struggled with one of the assailants over the shotgun — three shots rang out, two striking him in the chest at close range. Moments later, the 25-year-old collapsed to the ground and died on the street.
The Glynn County Coroner completed an autopsy the following day. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation classified it as a homicide: death by multiple shotgun wounds. Furthermore, the report aligned with what the world would soon see in the viral footage — the final terrifying seconds of a young man hunted down while doing something as mundane and human as going for a jog.
Despite the clear brutality of the act, it would take more than two months for arrests to be made. Public outrage erupted after the footage surfaced online, and calls for justice were amplified by activists, celebrities, such as LeBron James and Oprah Winfrey, and ordinary citizens who saw their own sons, brothers, and friends in Arbery.
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The McMichaels were eventually arrested and charged with murder and aggravated assault, followed soon after by Bryan. In November 2021, a jury found all three men guilty.
In a Georgia courtroom, justice — however delayed — was delivered: the McMichaels were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, while Bryan received life with the chance of parole after 30 years. But the case didn’t end there. The three were later convicted on federal charges of hate crimes and attempted kidnapping, marking a pivotal moment in Georgia’s legal history.
Indeed, Arbery’s death became a catalyst for sweeping change. Georgia lawmakers repealed the state’s Civil War-era citizen’s arrest law, which had been cited in defense of the killers’ actions. In its place, the state passed its first-ever hate crimes law, a milestone driven by the public’s demand for accountability and the tireless efforts of Cooper-Jones.
Still, for her, no sentence, no legislation, and no amount of time can erase the memory of what happened that day — or the pain of what was tragically lost.
For many, Arbery’s story is a reminder of the work still left to do. But for Cooper-Jones, it is a mission — one she carries every single day.
Through her foundation, her advocacy, and the community that is “still running with Maud,” she ensures that her son’s name will not be forgotten — not as a statistic, not as a symbol, but as a life that mattered deeply. RIP, dear Arbery.
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