Justin Chaz Fuller, the second son of Eddie and Ellis Fuller, was born on Aug. 29, 1978, in Dallas.

Ellis Fuller's job with Texas Utility kept his family moving around until 1982, when they settled permanently in Tyler and eased into a typical suburban lifestyle.

Ellis Fuller continued working for the utility and in his spare time coached his two sons' soccer team. Justin's mother, Eddie, worked as a middle-school substitute teacher and became active in the local church, where she and Justin sang for the gospel choir.

"He was just a normal, everyday-type kid. He didn't give us problems," Eddie Fuller said of her youngest son. "He wasn't the type to get in trouble. He didn't start fights — he ran away from them."

Justin excelled in soccer, baseball and basketball, she said, and was extremely devoted to his friends.

"Everybody was his friend, and he loved to make people laugh," Eddie Fuller told CourtTVnews.com. "When he went out, he didn't let his clothes slouch. He was conscious of his looks and kept himself well-groomed."

By high school, however, Justin says he began rebelling against his parents by staying out late and associating with a tough crowd.

"I used to do crazy things just to be cool," he told CourtTVnews.com. "I was a follower. So, if it was cool to my friends, then it was cool for me."

A few months after he graduated from Chapel Hill High School in 1996, Justin went to Louisiana and stayed with his older brother, Jason, according to Eddie Fuller. He considered enrolling at Louisiana Tech for the fall 1997 semester, but instead returned to Tyler.

He moved in with his girlfriend, Tamicka Hill, who lived in the same apartment complex as 21-year-old Donald Whittington.

Fuller admits that on April 21, 1997, he joined a plot with Hill's friends — Sam Wideman, Elaine Hays and Brent Chandler — to rob Whittington. But he says he unwittingly became an accessory to Whittington's murder.

"He would let anyone befriend him. He was just too nice. But he wasn't a street child," Eddie Fuller said. "If he had been a street child, he would have probably known better than to get involved with those people."

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