CENTRALIA — Thoughts and prayers from around the community are being sent out to a 13-year-old Centralia boy who was shot in the head early Saturday morning while visiting with friends on the front porch of a home in the 100 block of South Pine.

The boy was found just before 6 a.m. Saturday morning. A small group of junior high and high school students had gathered at the home. The victim did not live at that address.

Parents have been alerted of the incident and that there would be a police presence at the junior high Monday morning as an extra precaution.

The boy was initially taken to SSM Health St. Mary’s Hospital before being transferred to a St. Louis Hospital where he succumbed to critical head injuries. There were no reports of gunfire in the neighborhood before the juvenile was found.

The Child Death Task Force, which is headed up by State Police and contains specially trained officers from police departments around the region, will be assisting Centralia police with the ongoing investigation.

The Illinois State Police Crime Scene Investigation Unit as well as Centralia detectives and some off duty officers were called in Saturday morning to help track down leads in the case.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Centralia Police at 533-7602.