Family shares grief after teen shot, killed while sleeping in her home

PHOENIX (3TV/CBS 5/Gray News) - The family of a 15-year-old girl shot and killed while sleeping in her west Phoenix home Sunday demands answers. No one’s been arrested, and police don’t think it was an accident.

GiaGinette Brown was sleeping in bed when police said a bullet from someone shooting outside entered her bedroom and killed her.

“They took a life that this world is going to miss,” said Terri Smith, GiaGinette’s aunt. “She is 15 years old and went to bed in her house, which should be a safe spot, in her bed.”

GiaGinette’s family spoke outside the family home. Through tears, her aunt described the agonizing pain of losing a child to gun violence.

“At 15, had her whole life ahead of her. So her family, our family, is hurting,” said Gabby Dancy.

Her cousin, Adrian Smith, was sleeping in the bedroom next door but said he didn’t wake up that night. “There was bullet holes in my room, too, but I don’t know why, but the bullets that hit me didn’t even break my skin. Gia is my angel, but it wasn’t supposed to be that way,” he said.

Sunday morning, police were called to the family home near 107th Avenue and Camelback. “We believe at least now that she was shot and potentially deceased for a long period of time in her bed and didn’t get found until earlier that next morning by family,” said Sgt. Rob Scherer with Phoenix Police. “Heinous act, tragedy. It really makes you sit back and think the tragedy of this with a 15-year-old girl with all left for her to live.”

Smith, who is like a mother to GiaGinette, said after investigators left, she was the one to clean up the crime scene.

“I’m the one who had to come back and clean it up in her bed,” Smith said.

Detectives said they believe the shooting most likely happened between midnight and three in the morning. “It was the only house that was struck by gunfire, which tends to lead investigators to believe it wasn’t necessarily a random act,” Scherer said. “This appeared to be a targeted incident.”

“For those individuals that believe it’s OK to shoot at any type of structure, understand bullets make their way through a lot to include, you know, homes, windows, drywall,” Scherer said.

If it wasn’t already hard enough, GiaGinette is the second unexpected death with which the family is dealing.

“As we were planning one funeral for my mother, we are now wondering what to do,” Smith said.

GiaGinette was a sophomore at West Point High School and a member of the Dragon Spiritline, but her family said she was so much more than that. “Gia was a great person; she was a really innocent soul. She didn’t do anything to deserve what happened to her,” said her sister Paris Holmes.

“She was my happy spot. She was my home, like I love her,” said Jniyah, Brown’s friend.

The family has created this GoFundMe to help with funeral expenses.