DECATUR, Ga. -- A 4-year-old boy who was struck by a stray bullet while at church died Friday.

The incident happened around midnight Friday during a New Year’s Eve watch service at the Covington Drive Church Of God of Prophecy in Decatur.

It was not immediately clear who fired the shot that came through the roof of the church and struck the child, who was identified as Marquel Peters.

"It's hard. He was my only child. He was only 4. He was a smart little boy, he was so sweet," said his mother, Nathalee Peters.

She said Friday night that she still can’t believe it happened.

“I heard a little sound like a ‘pink.’ I heard him scream a little bit, so I looked around to hand him the game and that's when I saw the blood,” she said. "I tried to pick him up and then, he was losing consciousness and he was just breaking and going down. It was so hard."

DeKalb County police said they thought at first that debris from the roof fell and hit Marquel.

But the medical examiner found the bullet in the boy’s head when he performed the autopsy.

Nathalee Peters wants the person who fired the gun to turn himself in.

"I want to say to the person responsible for this please come forward or whoever out there know something about who did this to my son, please come forward and say something. We need justice," she said.