Declan Cutler: Reservoir teen remembered as ‘first love of my life’ by shattered mother

A Reservoir teenager killed during a sickening attack on the weekend has been remembered as “caring, loving and easygoing”.

Teenager Declan Cutler was stabbed to death after a party in Melbourne. Picture: Nine News

A community GoFundMe page has been established for the family of a Reservoir teenager fatally stabbed on the weekend.

Declan Cutler, 16, was killed in Elizabeth St, Reservoir shortly after 2am on Sunday in what was believed to be a targeted attack and which was described by police as “a very vicious assault”.

Declan’s mother Sam labelled the offenders cowards and said she “wants justice done.”

“I want my baby back,” Ms Cutler said.

“I don’t know if I will ever find peace again — he was my first love.”

Declan was the eldest of five children – three younger brothers and one younger sister.

Godmother Kelly Salmon described family and friends of Declan as “inconsolable.”

“If love alone could save him he would have lived forever,” Ms Salmon said.

“He has more friends than any of us knew,” she said.

Ms Salmon said that Declan had begun to work as a concreter for his father and his uncle, while continuing his schooling at The Pavilion School in Epping.

She said the family, in particular Declan’s mother, has been left devastated by the police response to his death.

“The police didn’t tell (Declan’s mother) Sam that he had died. It was Declan’s friends banging on the door two hours after the assault,” she said.

Ms Salmon said Declan’s mother had received “little contact” regarding the status of the investigation, despite the media being told that an arrest was close.

She said “disgusting” comments were still being left on Declan’s Instagram profile by people believed to have been associates of the men involved in the attack.

“How are they still walking around?”

According to police, Declan was chased by a dark-coloured sedan that contained a number of men inside it outside a house party before he was killed.

He was separated from his friends, police said, before he was allegedly attacked by the men from the car.

Detective Superintendent Paul O’Halloran said police were “shocked by the brutality of the crime,” which they said involved a number of blows to the young man’s head and body.

Victoria Police have been contacted for comment.