A pair of used beach towels remain in the room where Jacobie and Jacquez Brown slept Saturday night. The brothers, ages 14 and 11, had spent much of Sunday morning in the pool at their dad's house.

It was, as they told their grandmother on the drive back to their mother's home in Stone Mountain, "the best Father's Day they ever had," said Arletha White, the boys' stepmother.

Family photo (ENLARGE)

Jacobie Brown, 14, pictured at a school dance last year, died Sunday trying to rescue his younger brother, Jacquez.

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She and her husband, Randy White, of Conyers, are still struggling with the sudden deaths of Jacobie and Jacquez, who drowned late Sunday afternoon at a pond near their home in Stone Mountain's Martin's Crossing subdivision.

"They were excellent swimmers. Excellent," their stepmother said. "They loved the water."

After she heard of the brothers' deaths on Sunday night, Arletha White said, "I went into their room and I saw those damp towels, right where they left them. And that's where they're going to stay."

The boys had gone out to play with some friends once they returned home Sunday. Wherever Jacobie went, Jacquez, his carefree, athletic younger brother, was sure to follow.

They normally didn't hang around the pond, said their cousin, Rosneisa Williams. "We just had a family meeting last week where we told them not to go down to that lake," she said.

According to officials with DeKalb County's Fire and Rescue Department, Jacquez jumped into the pond to retrieve a can tossed by another boy.

"We think he panicked when he couldn't touch the bottom," Williams said. DeKalb Fire and Rescue spokesman Eric Jackson noted the pond has a steep decline about 10 feet from the shore.

Once he saw his brother — small for his age — go under, Jacobie raced into the water to save him.

"Jacobie was his protector," his cousin said. "It does our hearts good to know Jacobie was taking care of his brother up until the very end."

He was mature beyond his years; "his Momma's backbone," Williams said. "He was the man of the house."

Keisha Brown, a single mother, depended mightily on the oldest of her six children. The brothers leave behind four little sisters, ages 10, 8, 5 and 4.

"Jacobie had a calm aura about him," his mother recalled. The music lover and basketball fan would have been a freshman at Redan High School this fall.

"He was an old soul," Brown said. "He'd always be telling the younger ones, 'don't be doing that. Momma told you not to do that.

"He was my child. He was my friend."