Post by Scumhunter on Oct 14, 2016 3:28:44 GMT -5
(Above photo credit: New Orleans Crime Stoppers)
From nola.con:
LaToya Fountain and her boyfriend were sitting on a sofa watching television in the living room of his first-floor Terrytown apartment Monday night, their sons, ages 4 and 5, playing nearby, when three bullets ripped through the front door. Fountain's boyfriend grabbed the boys and scrambled for the bedroom, according to Glen Boyd, spokesman for the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office.
The children weren't injured. But Fountain's boyfriend overheard the 33-year-old say, "I've been hit." Her boyfriend returned to the living room to find her suffering a gunshot wound to the chest. By the time paramedics arrived, Fountain was gone.
Detectives have no suspects or a motive in Fountain's death, leaving relatives of the Greensboro, N.C., woman devastated and confused.
"We're just so baffled," family friend Juanita Cash, 60, of Greensboro, said on Tuesday. "Toya really didn't know anyone there."
The shooting occurred about 9:30 p.m. at the Cedarwood Apartments, a complex located at 2350 Park Place, Terrytown. Neighbors dialed 911 after overhearing the gunshots, Boyd said.
A resident who asked not to be identified said he overheard three gunshots as his young daughter stood next to him.
"She didn't know what was going on," the man said. "I just grabbed her, brought her into the bedroom and laid down on the floor."
Neither he nor his daughter was hurt. But the shooting has left his family nervous and scared.
"That's too close for comfort," he said.
Fountain had only been in New Orleans for about two months, Cash said. She came to join her sons, Akeem and Peris, who arrived in April to spend some time with their dad, another Greensboro native who had moved to Terrytown. Fountain and her sons were due to return to Greensboro in about a week for the start of school, according to Cash and her mother, Lorraine Fountain, 49.
"She had just gone down there for the summer. The father wanted to see the children. She came down after she got out of school," said Cash, who drove Fountain to New Orleans.
Fountain was a student at Guilford Technical Community College in Jamestown, N.C., according to Cash. She had worked as a home health aide and was a certified nursing assistant, but wanted to complete a degree in nursing.
Relatives and friends described Fountain as friendly and loving. "She was very talkative," Lorraine Fountain said. "She was just a very happy and outgoing person."
She was the oldest of two girls, born and raised in Greensboro. Fountain always had a smile on her face and rarely found herself in disputes, said Cash, who added, "She liked to live and let live."
In addition to her mother, sister and sons, Fountain is survived by her father, Johnny Lee Johnson, and a host of aunts, uncles and cousins.
Her family members had not spoken with Fountain's sons as of Tuesday afternoon. They also weren't sure where or how to start the likely complicated process of returning her body to North Carolina.
As relatives grapple with their grief, they've also wondered, Who? Who would be callous enough to fire a gun into an apartment that was home to four people, two of them children?
Fountain didn't know many people in the New Orleans area, and relatives hadn't heard of anyone who would have wanted to harm her or her boyfriend. Fountain thought New Orleans was a great place and seemed to like her boyfriend's apartment complex.
"She would walk the kids to the swimming pool every day around 3 p.m.," Cash said.
Cash visited the apartment briefly when she dropped off Fountain, but nothing seemed out of place or dangerous.
"I told her family, it was warm and it was living," Cash said. "I didn't see a threat, like they weren't going to be safe."
. . . . . . . .
Anyone with information about the death of Latoya Fountain is asked to call the Sheriff's Office investigations bureau at 504.364.5300. The public can also call Crimestoppers at 504.822.1111 or toll-free at 877.903.7867. Tips can be texted to C-R-I-M-E-S (274637); text TELLCS then the crime information. Callers or texters do not have to give their names or testify and can earn a $2,500 reward for information that leads to an indictment.
www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2015/08/latoya_fountain_terrytown_murder.html
Thoughts? I have to wonder if this was some case of mistaken identity since Latoya was said to not really know anybody in New Orleans.
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