PORTSMOUTH, Va. — Police went out in the community Thursday for a reset walk in connection with the 17-year-old girl shot and killed in Portsmouth.
On Saturday night, police got a call to the 3300-block of High street. Police said they found Nye'Tazia Hicks in the Evergreen Memorial Cemetery with a gunshot wound to her upper body.
Neighbors near the cemetery said that they saw the teen’s body, but never heard a gunshot.
“We didn’t hear it. I’m always listening out for different things. It’s sad to take away someone else’s life,” said a neighbor.
Portsmouth police chief Angela Greene said that police believe Hicks was shot in the Charlestowne Condominium complex, and her body dumped at the cemetery later.
“We believe we know to be that the incident happened within one of the homes out here in the area...We come out here, in the hopes that the public may be able to garner some information that can help us give closure to the family that had to go through this traumatic event,” said Greene.
A family friend of the Hicks family, Kintrell Devin, said that whoever killed Hicks should come forward.
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“We need the truth, and until someone comes forward, I’m afraid that we’re going to see another repeat of this,” Devin said.
Devin added that she had a message for Hicks’ killer.
“Be bold enough to say I made a mistake, and what I did was not right,” she said. “She was a mother. So, there’s a six-month-old baby who was her world, that will never get to know his mother now.”
Devin said at the vigil Thursday night leaders plan to talk to attending teens about gun violence.
“My desire is to bring them in and speak to them about gun violence and why they need to put the guns down,” said Devin.
The vigil started at 7 p.m. on Thursday at New Bethel Baptist Church.