ATLANTA — Benjamin Llyod Cloer's name was not announced at the Georgia Tech Ph.D. graduation. Ben will never walk across the stage, or receive the diploma he worked so hard towards.
He was murdered last month, a tragedy still devastatingly fresh for the small University of Georgia graduate student community he was a member of. He was set to graduate from UGA with a master's degree in artificial intelligence in just two weeks.
The Georgia Tech Ph.D. program was his next stop.
His presence was felt at that graduation ceremony in the form of his dad, Steve.
Steve Cloer sat between proud parents and excited siblings in the crowd with a tissue pressed between his fingers, nodding as he read through the program.
But the words he was looking for weren’t written in that leaflet. They were on the face of a woman who, until today, was practically a stranger.
Dr. C Young never met Ben, but she brought him with her as she crossed the stage.
"They wanted to bring Ben here, so they brought a locket with some of his hair in it," Steve Cloer said. "And I won't ever be able to see Ben walk across that stage. But at least I know a little part of him got to."
Dr. Young knew this is what Ben wanted most in his life. Their families are friends, and when she heard he was murdered, she wanted to do something, anything to help.
"I feel kinda cheated that this was my son's passion to be here. He should have been here a couple years from now," Steve Cloer said. "He just wanted to make the world a better place."
Ben was quietly brilliant - tutoring kids in his spare time, creating a course at Georgia Tech for high school students interested in robotics.
It was all taken away in an unfathomable case of misunderstanding.
An off-duty sheriff's deputy shot him because he believed he was having an affair with his wife.
Ben's father said she was scared and turned to Ben, her friend, for help.
"This whole thing was totally unnecessary. My son was just eating dinner, innocent and unarmed. And somebody walked in and murdered him," Steve Cloer said. "He was a brilliant person who had a knack for, he wanted to help people. When this happened to him, he was trying to help a friend."
Ben Cloer's presence felt at Georgia Tech PhD graduation
Steve Cloer hopes time will ease his pain, but it may never answer the question: Why?
"He was my best friend, but he respected me as his father," he said, "This will be with me the rest of my life, it will never make sense to me."
Ben's friends have created an endowment at UGA to help other students study AI - they've already raised $20,000 in his honor.
The suspect in Ben's murder, the now-fired Madison County deputy Trey Adams, will be back in court Jan. 16.
He's charged with murder.
MORE HEADLINES