A 10-year-old Houston girl played dead after being shot by a masked gunman who killed her parents and little sister.
Houston police are investigating the fatal shootings of the girl’s father, Gregory Carhee, 35, her mother, Donyavia Lagway, 29, and her sister, 6-year-old Harmony Carhee, according to Click2Houston. The assailant appears to have known the victims.
The girl told investigators that the killer knocked on the door of the family’s home on Wednesday and was let in by her father. The man then lined up the family members on the couch and shot them.
The 10-year-old was shot in the arm and played dead. Once the killer left, she called her grandmother on FaceTime for help.
“‘Granny, someone came in and shot me, my momma and my dad and sister, and they’re dead.’ She was in the house about 15 minutes with the bodies until we got here,” said Angela Ervin, a family member.
“She waited until he left and pretended that she was dead,” said another family member, Ronette Terrell. “And then when he left, she locked the door, grabbed her little brother, and called her grandmother.”
The couple, who had been together for a decade, had a 1-year-old son who was also home at the time but not injured. According to reports, an 8-year-old boy in the family was not at home when the shooting happened.
“I just want everybody to know my baby, she’s a hero. My baby is a hero,” the girl’s grandmother, Manda Lagway, told ABC13. “I still can’t believe it.”
“The shooting call, we received it from the grandmother who was not here at the apartment,” Patricia Cantu, an assistant chief at the Houston Police Department, said in a video statement posted online.
“This is a very, very tragic scene,” said Cantu at the press briefing. “We’re sending out prayers to the family. This was not only a difficult scene for us but for the family as well.”
Police reportedly know who the shooter is — a Black male in his 20s — but the suspect remains at large. Crime Stoppers is offering up to a $5,000 reward for information on the case.
The 10-year-old is still in the hospital recovering.
“I don’t really know who would want to hurt them because … they were good people,” said Lagway, according to the Daily News. “Whoever knows something or heard something, please just contact the police or just come forward or something,” she told Click2Houston.
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