Tyler Binsted always had a flair for creative work, no matter what the form.

It's a trait that his closest friends always loved about him, and were drawn to.

"We always created together and played in bands together in high school," recalled Stephen Walthall, one of Tyler's closest friends. "He was one of the most creative people I ever knew."

A standout soccer player at Stonewall Jackson High School in Mount Jackson, Tyler helped the school reach its first Group A championship game.
His academic achievements and remarkable self-awareness were equally as notable.

"He was a phenomenal, phenomenal student," said Stonewall Jackson Athletic Director and biology teacher Todd Fannin. "Not only was he always at the top of his class academically, he would spend as much time helping others achieve a fraction of what he had."

Jeff Burner, who also taught Tyler in high school, described the young man as "true to who he was." Burner added, "he was unique and different, and he was creative and funny, and he wasn't afraid
to be himself."

Throughout his life, Tyler developed an extremely close relationship with his two best friends and identical twin Seth.

"I felt as much as a brother to them," said Matt Wilder, Tyler's best friend. "I've never had a brother, but he was a brother to me."

Understandably, no one knows exactly how to react to the circumstances of Tyler's death.
He was shot to death in Richmond Thursday morning, after being the victim of a car robbery.

"[The shooter] doesn't see the mother or the father or the friends, in the face or the body of the person that they're killing," remarked Wilder. "But I can't blame that person for what they did, in the same way that I can't blame Tyler for being in that situation."

Tyler Binsted was 19 years old, and a sculpture major at Virginia Commonwealth University.