‘My Baby!’: White Driver Arrested for Firing Into Black Mother’s Car with Her Children Inside, Killing 5-Year-Old Daughter in Alleged Road Rage
A Houston mother is mourning the loss of her 5-year-old daughter, who died tragically just minutes from their home.
The incident happened Saturday around 11:30 p.m. on Grant Road near Jones Road, according to the Harris County Sheriff’s Office.
Jeremy Porter, 47, was arrested Sunday and faces a capital murder charge in connection with Zah’layah Walter’s death.
Monica Hicks, Walter’s mother, says she was driving from her mother’s house with her five children when gunfire shattered her car’s back window.
“Everybody’s screaming and I’m trying to figure out what’s going on,” she told ABC 13.
Hicks says the shooter kept firing. She was eventually able to get into her apartment complex, which was just down the road.
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Once she parked, Hicks told her children to get out of the car and called 911. She says her worst nightmare became a reality when she walked to the other side of the car to get her daughter.
“I did not know my daughter was hit until I had to walk around and my baby was slumped in the seat bleeding out,” she said.
Paramedics tried to save Zah’layah before flying her to a hospital by helicopter, where doctors pronounced her dead.
Deputies say shattered glass injured two other children in the car.
Authorities believe road rage sparked the shooting. However, Hicks disputes that account.
“I didn’t exchange words with the individual. Didn’t see them coming. Didn’t know they were behind me, honestly. We were literally almost home,” she told ABC 13.
Hicks described her daughter to KHOU as the ‘light of her life’.
“That was my baby. And she’s so loving. The last thing she told me was, ‘I love you mommy.’ She gave me a kiss. And who knew from that conversation that that would be the last time I ever hear my daughter talk,” she said. “My daughter is never coming back, and I have to live with that.”
Harris County authorities are holding Porter in the county jail. Sheriff Ed Gonzalez credits Flock cameras with helping detectives during the investigation.
Before authorities announced the arrest, Hicks said she spotted what appeared to be an older white four-door Ford pickup truck but could not see who was inside.
Porter was scheduled to appear in court early Monday morning, but was said to be “disruptive”, according to KHOU.