BOSTON — An East Boston family is trying to solve a mystery surrounding the death of one of their loved ones.
A 38-year-old Boston native was found dead beside train tracks in Pittsburgh last month.
Investigators believe he had been dead for a while.
Steven O'Brien's family had been looking for him for months.
He moved to Pittsburgh in 2013 and disappeared in January.
Sadly, his badly decomposed body was discovered two weeks ago.
Now, 600 miles away, here in East Boston, his family is trying to figure out what happened.
Deb O'Brien wants to know what happened to her brother.
"That’s the hardest part, just knowing he was by himself, that he was just left there alone, and like, nobody cared," she said. “Everything went through my head. Did someone hurt him? Did someone kill him?"
Steven moved to Pittsburgh five years ago. His family says he was last seen there in January after he got into a fight with his wife. After that, he disappeared.
"We started looking for him two months ago," said Steven's niece, Danielle Borgosano.
She said her uncle had substance abuse issues and had recently done a stint in jail.
She believes something happened to Steven, and whoever he was with, moved his body to those train tracks.
She said the area where his body was eventually found was too busy for him to go undetected for long.
"Whoever he was with, they weren’t friends, they weren’t good people. They didn’t know what to do. Maybe they got scared, and they freaked out and they said, ‘Let’s leave him here,'" said Borgosano.
The family is pleading with someone to come forward and solve this mystery.
"We want to have peace of mind. I want to be able to go to bed at night and know how my uncle died. It’s really disgusting knowing how he was found," said Borgosano.
Pittsburgh Police said the cause of death is still unknown.
Since the body was so badly decomposed, it's going to take time to figure out how he died.
Right now, the family is trying to bring O'Brien's body back to East Boston so that he can finally be home.
A GoFundMe page has been set up to help the family raise money for a funeral service in Boston.