TAYLORSVILLE, Utah — At 6 feet 3 inches tall and 350 pounds, Kerri Ingham described her nephew Nick as a “gentle giant” with a “heart of gold.”

“From the moment he was born, I called him my lover boy because we had that special bond,” she said.

Ingham said Nick Vetechnik suffered much loss in his life. Both of his parents died in the last two years, his mom to cancer and his dad to a heart attack in Dec. 2020.

After his mom passed, Nick moved in with his aunt full-time.

Ingham said even as a teen, he always put family first.

“(Wednesday) morning, he grabbed me, pulled me into his chest, gave me a great big bear hug, told me how much he loved me, said he was going to hang out and he’d be back,” said Ingham.

Nick never made it back home. Instead, his body was found nearby in a cargo trailer in the area of 6000 South and 1600 West in Taylorsville.

On Thursday, police said they had a suspect in custody, a 17-year-old friend of Nick’s.

Ingham said she couldn’t believe it.

“I never in a million years thought this would happen,” she said. “This is just horrendous.”

As police continue to investigate, Nick’s family said they were trying to make sense of the tragedy as they prepared to give their gentle giant a final resting spot near his parents.

“We want him to have the most beautiful final resting spot there is and we want to put his mom’s ashes and his dad’s ashes with him,” Ingham said in tears. “We want him to just go out like a champ, so to speak.”

A GoFundMe* page has been set up to help pay for funeral expenses.

*KSL-TV does not assure that the money deposited to the account will be applied for the benefit of the persons named as beneficiaries. If you are considering a deposit to the account, you should consult your own advisors and otherwise proceed at your own risk.