ERIC BRADY The Roanoke Times

Roanoke police Officer Mike Wheeler investigates a scene Tuesday near the border of Roanoke and Vinton. A 19-year-old was stabbed Monday and traveled through the area before police were contacted.

Sherry Kendrick doesn't like tattoos, and she especially didn't like it when her nephew got tattoos.

But now, she wants to have "Survivor" inked somewhere on her body..

In one of her last conversations with her nephew, William Christopher Linn, he told her to be strong because she was going through a tough time.

"You got to be a survivor," Kendrick said Linn told her Monday afternoon. "You taught me that as a child."

Linn, 19, died after he was stabbed Monday night in the 1300 block of Baldwin Avenue in Northeast Roanoke.

Roanoke police on Tuesday arrested a 16-year-old girl at a residence in Roanoke and charged her with murder in Linn's death. Her name has not been released because of her age. Police said she and Linn knew each other but wouldn't provide any additional details.

Kendrick, who says she had legal custody of Linn when he was 16 and 17, said he had been at his girlfriend's house Monday night.

He was walking home to Kendrick's house in Northeast Roanoke when he was stabbed, Kendrick said. He then went back to his girlfriend's house, which Roanoke police have only identified as being in Vinton.

They are still investigating how Linn got from Baldwin Avenue to the Vinton residence where police were called at 11:32 p.m., police spokeswoman Aisha Johnson said.

Linn was taken to Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital, where he later died, Johnson said.

Police were back in the neighborhood Tuesday morning looking for more evidence and marking blood drops that led from the asphalt on Daleton Avenue to a front porch in the 1200 block, just a block from where the stabbing occurred. No one answered the door at that house.

Kendrick said Linn was like a son to her.

"His heart was so good," she said.

She joked with him that they couldn't go anywhere without his bumping into someone he knew.

"His personality was so upbeat," she said. "He was so friendly."

She pushed him to finish school at Rivermont School, a therapeutic day school for children with emotional disabilities, and he was getting ready to start a new job at Subway.

"He was trying to make life happen," she said.

Linn's death is the sixth homicide in Roanoke this year. That compares with last year's total of four, a low number hit only one other time -- 1994 -- in at least 40 years. The city had 11 homicides in 2006 and 16 in 2005.