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- Oct 28, 2006
SMH she just moved to ATL LAST WEEK ....
http://www.11alive.com/ne...oryid=134822&catid=3
http://www.11alive.com/ne...oryid=134822&catid=3
[h1]Woman Who Came to Metro Atlanta from NY to Escape Violence Shot and Killed[/h1]
ROSWELL, Ga. -- A young woman, an aspiring model who just moved to Metro Atlanta from New York hoping to escape the violence there, was shot in the head and killed early Sunday morning when someone blindly fired multiple gunshots into the building and through the window of the apartment she was visiting.
The victim -- Fantasia Byrd. She would have turned 21 in November.
"It's just senseless," a cousin, LaShaunda Franklin, told 11Alive News Sunday night. "Oh, Fantasia! She just graduated. She just came here from New York a week ago, to leave the violence. From New York, came here. She's been here for a week. And this is what happened to her."
Franklin and other family members -- including Byrd's parents and grandmother and a dozen other relatives who flew from New York Sunday morning -- are begging witnesses to come forward and help police find the killer.
At around 2:30 a.m. Sunday, someone with a gun got into the locked, gated driveway entrance to Chattahoochee Landing Apartments in Roswell, which is just north of where Roswell Road crosses the Chattahoochee River. Residents said Sunday afternoon that the gates had not been closed and locked as they're supposed to be, but no one with management was commenting Sunday.
The person with the gun approached Apartment 1122, stood in the parking lot and fired multiple gunshots into the building and through a front window -- through the closed window blinds, unable to see who was inside the apartment -- and then fled.
"I believe that our best estimate, so far, there's going to be about 20 rounds that were fired" into the building, said Roswell Police Sgt. Bobby Brackett.
One of the rounds that went through the window struck Fantasia Byrd in the back of the head, killing her.
Byrd's cousin, LaShaunda Franklin, said Byrd was at the apartment visiting another cousin, Noel Hazard, who lives there and who police identify as a leasing agent at the complex.
"There were eight people inside at the time, including the victim," Sgt. Brackett said. "They had returned from being out at an establishment a little bit earlier. They had returned home. Approximately 15 minutes after they got inside the apartment is when the gunfire erupted."
Franklin said Byrd and the others had been playing pool together down the street.
"It was just like a regular pool hall, I know it wasn't a club that they went to, it was a pool hall right down the street.... We don't if they were followed home, we just don't know," Franklin said.
And Roswell police don't know yet if the attacker was targeting someone inside the apartment, or picked the apartment at random.
"He just stood here and just fired right into the window," said a neighbor Tony McFarlane. "When I came outside, I heard a whole bunch of screaming, a whole bunch of commotion..."
One of the bullets that was fired into the building went into Tony McFarlane's apartment, missing him and the rest of his family .
"At first, I thought it was some firecrackers, 'cause I thought it was kids outside playing around."
McFarlane called 911.
"It's wild, though, Man, 'cause the girl's only 20 years old. You know, she's still young.... It's just hard, it's hard to take, Man. Life too short for that. She was just sitting down, she was just sitting down, she was just sitting down, and they shot through the window and hit her in the back of the head."
"She wanted to be a model," Franklin said of her cousin. "If you look at her pictures, she's beautiful. She's beautiful.... If you had a problem, you could talk to Fantasia... Anytime anybody needed her, a thousand miles away, all the way in New York, the family always felt like Fantasia was right there by their side, anytime they needed anything... Just a young person, you know, going in the right path, going in the right direction to make something of herself. That was something that was definitely not a question, whether she was going to make something of herself, that was a given that she was going to make something of herself."
Franklin said the family hopes someone saw something outside Building 1100 that might help police track down the killer.
"If anybody'd seen anything, if you'd seen something and you live in Chattahoochee Landing, if you've seen it, that's enough. Maybe we can build on what you've seen.... If anybody definitely knows anything, please come forward. That will put what's left of us at peace, if we, at least, know who did it... We just want justice served... We beg and we plead with them just to come forward."
And -- call Roswell Police.
Sgt. Brackett said that Sunday night, investigators completed interviewing the seven survivors from inside the apartment, and were beginning to trace the survivors' relationships and contacts, as well as Byrd's, for possible leads to any suspects. Investigators are also checking the apartment complex's security cameras for possible video of any suspects.
This is crazy...she was on Twitter like minutes before and then
