Twenty minutes after being told her son was injured and in hospital, Karen Henry received a call back from police.
Her loving son, Nicholas, had died after being hunted down and stabbed.
"I never got the chance to say goodbye, he was taken from me so quickly," Ms Henry said, in an emotional statement to Victoria's Supreme Court.
Nicholas Henry's traumatised family attended court on Friday, as the three young men who admitted killing him faced a pre-sentence hearing.
Brothers Corey and Brayden Smart, and Abraham Abas, chased Mr Henry down across Morwell, in Victoria's southeast, in February 2021, before corralling him off the road and surrounding him.
All three have pleaded guilty to manslaughter.
Justice Jane Dixon said Mr Henry was "hunted down" by the men and had very little chance of getting away from them.
Corey Smart believed Mr Henry had broken into his girlfriend's car earlier that night, on February 20, outside an RSL.
He gathered Abas and his brother and drove them, following Mr Henry's van and forcing it off the road.
The van mounted a gutter and crashed into a fence.
"You dog, you rat," a neighbour heard one of the three offenders yell.
Mr Henry got out of the van and tried to run away but the three men chased after him and began assaulting him as he laid "completely defenceless on the ground", prosecutor David Glynn said.
"It's motivated by revenge and, to an extent, taking the law into their own hands," he said.
The group bashed Mr Henry while he laid on the ground, pulled out a knife and stabbed him eight times across his back and bottom.
"He was not in a position to defend himself, he was utterly helpless," Mr Glynn said.
Mr Henry was taken to hospital, alive but bleeding heavily.
He died at 2.30am on February 21.
His mother said her son's death had shattered her world and their family had not been the same since.
"I cant believe I will not hear Nicholas' voice again, see his cheeky smile and most of all hear his laugh," she said in a statement.
"All I ask is that my boy and our family receive justice for Nicholas."
His sister Taylor Henry said she fell to the ground "screaming no" when her mother told her the tragic news.
"Our family will never be the same," she said.
The three men are each facing up to 25 years in prison.
Corey's barrister Julian McMahon SC said his client suffered from neurological issues after being involved in a car accident and asked the judge not to hand him a harsher sentence than the other two.
Colin Mandy SC said Brayden Smart had acted out of a sense of loyalty for his brother, while Abas' barrister David Cronin said his client, who is a refugee, faced the prospect of being deported.
Justice Dixon will sentence the Smart brothers and Abas at a later date.
