A St. Louis family has been rocked with tragedy after a 7-year-old girl and her father were fatally shot Sunday night.
The child, Dmyah Fleming, and her father, Darrion Fleming, 26, were sitting in his parked car when someone approached and shot them, PEOPLEreports. The father died at the scene, while his daughter died at a hospital.
“I’m just sitting here hoping that my heart just stops,” said Yolanda Johns, Dmyah’s grandmother. She said the child’d father was “in love and obsessed with Dmyah.”
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“That was his first child … his whole life centered on Dmyah. He’d never put her in harm’s way,” Johns added.
Dmyah was reportedly headed to her grandmother’s house when she and her father were shot as they sat inside a vehicle. Police suspect the victims and the unidentified shooter were acquainted.
“If they knew (her father), then they knew her, and they knew how she was,” said Johns, per the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “She was the sweetest baby doll. If she was standing right here, she’d probably be able to stand and talk and communicate with you better than I’m doing right now.”
Darrion’s mother, Suketha Rankin, told KMOV that she and her granddaughter “just had the best weekend ever.”
“I taught her how to bake. We baked cakes this weekend and she wants to be like me. We boxed up her little cakes, made her a business logo and next week we (were) doing business cards,” she added.
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Rankin said of her son: “Everybody loves him. He’s funny, he’s a joker, he’s just a real person.”
“How could you say it’s his fault his daughter is dead?” asked Selena Johns, Dmyah’s great aunt. “He’s supposed to be a father, be in her life…No father should pick up their child up and drop them off if that’s the case. He’s not the reason. The guy who pulled the trigger is the reason Dmyah is dead…The world feels this tragedy. This is a child. She’s innocent. She never did nothing to nobody.”
A reward of up to $30,000 is being offered for information leading to an arrest in the killings. Police are asking anyone with information to call CrimeStoppers at 866-371-8477.