Chris fled to another part of the city, moving into his girlfriend's house.

Lawanda Welton, whose son was gunned down in nearby Point Breeze, says, "It's a disaster. I'm leaving South Philly. They can have it."

She wants to tell the kids, "You're all killing each other, but the neighborhood will still be here. You'll be dead or in jail for trying to claim a corner, a corner that's always going to stand!"

Some parents manage to leave a rough part of town, then lose their children anyway. Two families moved to Lansdowne - from Frankford and West Philadelphia - only to see sons killed this year visiting friends in their old neighborhoods.

Chelena Hammond moved from North Philadelphia to "a nice section of Olney" last year to try to keep her son, Raphael Glee, safe. She really worried in the summer when he couldn't find a job; she kept calling his cell phone to check on him.

Her efforts failed. He was gunned down on a Saturday afternoon in August near his old turf at 25th and Cecil B. Moore.

"If you don't take them out of the neighborhood while they're young," Hammond says, "it's not going to work... . He was already 16, and all he knew was North Philly. I think it was pretty much too late."

Remembering

The names of the dead children are spray-painted on walls, tattooed on their mothers' arms, and ironed onto T-shirts, tote bags and jackets.

"I don't want my son's name to ever die," says Darcell Winn; her Darnell was killed by an assailant who says he was aiming at someone else.

At least two of the victims - Scott Sheridan, killed in Chester County, and Yagouba Bah of Olney - have elaborate Web sites where hundreds of classmates share memories. Terrence Adams' family plans to set up an art scholarship in his name, and a scholarship has been established at Cardinal O'Hara High School in memory of Scott Sheridan.

After Angela Burke's 16-year-old son, Shadeed, was shot in the family's Camden home, she and her husband, Johnny Strong, took solace in his baby - until DNA test results arrived after the funeral.

"We found out he wasn't my grandson," Burke says sadly. "That was a big blow there. But I see him and treat him like he was."

Yet nobody can deny the brutal, bloody, bottom line that Chelena Hammond, mother of Raphael Glee, says "hurts your soul."

"I will never, ever see his smile again," Diane Adams says of her son, Kareek.

"I will never, ever hear him say, 'Mom, you're a weirdo' because I like to watch the Animal Channel."

The 2006 Toll

This year, 24 children and teenagers 17 or younger have been killed by guns in the eight-county region.

22 were killed in Philadelphia - two more than last year.

All but two were between 14 and 17 years old. The others were 3 and 5.