‘We’re missing a piece to our puzzle’
Mother of slain 7-year-old girl describes shooting, urges suspect to turn himself in
She liked playing dress up, wearing purple and keeping her little sister “in line.”
Seven-year-old Jazmine Barnes had a big laugh and wanted to be a teacher. She often tried to sit on her mom’s lap as they drove on grocery shopping runs.
LaPorsha Washington had loaded her daughters into her silver sedan on Sunday morning on one such run. Alxis Dilbert, 15, was sitting in the front passenger seat. Ebonee Dilbert, 13, sat just behind. Six-year-old Unique Barnes, in the middle, and Jazmine was behind her mom.
As they headed to a Joe-V’s Smart Shop grocery in northeast Harris County, a gaunt man in a red pickup pulled up next to them on Wallisville Road just before 7 a.m. and started firing.
“I didn’t even see him. I didn’t see the truck,” Washington said, recalling glass shattering around her as bullets struck the car. “He emptied out his gun. I know that for a fact.”
One bullet struck her in the arm. She turned around to check on her daughters and saw that Jazmine had been shot in the head.
Two other girls were injured by flying shards of glass.
The details of the violent assault came into sharper focus Thursday, as Washington and her oldest daughter shared new details about the shooting and authorities released a composite sketch they hope will lead to tips about the gunman.
He ‘looked right into my car’
Across the nation, outrage over the incident continued to mount. Activists announced rewards of more than $100,000 for information leading to the arrest of the killer, described as a thin, white man in his 40s with blue eyes and facial stubble, believed to be wearing a black hooded sweatshirt.
In a wide-ranging interview at a cousin’s house in Katy with her 15year-old daughter, Alxis, and Barnes father, Chris Cevilla, at her side, Washington said she believed the shooting was racially motivated, citing another shooting just 16 months earlier a few miles away.
“He’s taking innocent lives, and it’s not fair, it’s not right,” Washington said. “That man looked right into my car … He looked in and had time to think about what he was going to do.”
Washington said she believed the gunman would ultimately have to own up to his misdeeds. She urged him to turn himself in.
“His conscience is finally going to get to him,” she said. “After seeing my daughter’s face going across TV so many times, he’s going to turn himself in.”
Alxis said the gunman who killed her sister looked “sick.”
She said she saw him up close from the front passenger seat when he pulled up next to them at a stoplight. He then dropped behind their Dodge and crossed over to the driver’s side before he started shooting.
“He was white and had blue eyes,” Alxis said. “I couldn’t see his hair, nothing like that.”
New clues sought
The Harris County Sheriff’s Office Thursday released enhanced surveillance video of the gunman’s red pickup and a composite sketch of the shooter.
Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said the composite was drawn by Lois Gibson, a local artist who works at the Houston Police Department and whose work has helped solve more than 1,200 cases. She recently did the drawing of “Little Jacob,” a toddler found on a Galveston beach.
Gonzalez said that NASA, amid the government shutdown, helped enhance the surveillance video caught minutes before the shooting. But he declined to speculate on a motive.
“It’s a whodunnit right now,” he said. “Once I determine who did it and where this vehicle is, then we’ll understand motive a little bit better.”
Detectives have been working around the clock, he said, vetting leads, searching for additional surveillance video, and developing other avenues of inquiry.
Law enforcement veterans said additional fieldwork and the public’s help will be invaluable in finding Barnes’ killer.
“What really generates the phone calls is when they can come up with a composite drawing of the suspect,” said former Houston Police Chief Charles A. McClelland. “When people can put those two pieces together — a suspect and a red truck — now, they can say, ‘Hey, that’s my next-door neighbor.’ ”
In Houston and across the nation, meanwhile, prominent African-Americans expressed outrage and grief over the shooting. In a tweet, Texans wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins pledged to dedicate Saturday’s game check to support Barnes’ family, saying Jazmine’s photo reminded him of his daughter. Director Ava DuVernay tweeted about the incident. Basketball legend Shaquille O’Neal reportedly agreed to cover the family’s funeral costs.
Such responses are not surprising given the heinous nature of Barnes’ death, said Andy Kahan, with Houston Crime Stoppers.
“The sheer notion that a 7-yearold girl was brutally murdered while inside her car galvanized an entire community to come together to find her killer,” he said. “The timing of Jazmine’s murder around the holidays only adds to the pain and anguish for her family.”
Julie Kaplow, a psychologist and director of Texas Children’s Hospital’s Trauma and Grief Center, said the fact that Jazmine’s killer remains free likely has spurred public interest in the case.
“It adds an element of fear and uncertainty to everyone — children and adults,” Kaplow said. “No one likes the idea of someone doing this again and not knowing who this is, but there is also a need for social justice and people being held accountable for the tragedy they caused.”
School district grieves
At Sheldon ISD’s Monahan Elementary, where Jazmine was enrolled as a second grader, officials said Thursday that additional counselors will be available for students when they return to school early next week. Those who choose to go to Jazmine’s funeral on Tuesday will have their absences excused.
Derik Moore, a spokesman for Sheldon ISD, said Jazmine joined the district only recently.
“She was a very good and wellliked student and always had a smile,” Moore said. “She loved coming to school.”
Other school officials were not available to comment, or were wary of speaking at length about the matter.
“It’s a tragedy — a very, very, very deep tragedy,” Sheldon ISD Board of Trustees President Latricia Archie.
A missing puzzle piece
LaPorsha Washington and her family, meanwhile, have not yet had time to mourn.
They plan to attend a community vigil set for Saturday in the Walmart parking lot at Wallisville and Beltway 8, near the scene of the shooting. And Tuesday, they will bury Jazmine after a public funeral at noon at the Green House International Church in Houston.
Though reeling from the loss of Jazmine, she said she’s grateful that her three other daughters hadn’t been more seriously injured. She loves them all, she said, and they all have their own personalities.
“They’re all part of me,” she said. “So one has my goofy side, one has my mean side, one has my silly side.”
But now Jazmine is gone. “We’re missing a piece to our puzzle.”