Police are searching for a suspect in the midday drive-by shooting of a 19-year-old Houston woman on Tuesday that left a two-year-old child without a mother.
Details are currently sketchy about the killing of Kendra Childs, who police say was slain while on the second floor of an apartment building around 12:15 Monday. Police said shots were fired from the parking lot of the building, striking her several times. Childs was found dead by her boyfriend when he arrived home.
“Witnesses reported seeing a black newer model Camaro with standard rims and tinted windows drive by the house and fire multiple rounds,” Mark Holdbrook of the Houston Police Department homicide unit told reporters.
Police believe Childs was the target of the shooting and that she was alone in the apartment while her boyfriend was at work.
Although no suspect has been named, social media has taken the hashtag #RIPKendra viral, saying that Childs was the victim of a murderous plot by her boyfriend’s ex-lover. Several tweets focus on a Twitter user using the handle @_ladykocaine, who made veiled threats in an August 11 tweet, but apparently did not direct them at anyone specifically. Users have said that this person had been romantically connected to the boyfriend, but substantial evidence confirming this has yet to surface. Officials have not commented on whether or not they are investigating the threats or if the user has been questioned.
Police have no motive in the shooting and it is unclear what might have prompted someone to go after Childs.
“I feel very broken, and it just hurt because she didn’t deserve to go like this,” said Childs’ cousin Angel Whitaker, who told KTRK she was killed a day before her 20th birthday. “Whoever did this, they were wrong and we will get justice for her.”
