[Fort Worth, TX] Deaths turn party into tragedy


http://www.star-telegram.com/804/story/567596.html
Gunman turns Fort Worth birthday party into tragedy
By DEANNA BOYD
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
FORT WORTH -- They had finished singing Happy Birthday and moved onto the
porch for ice cream and cake when the shots rang out.
Suddenly, the laughter of about a dozen children turned to screams.

"I was right by the door trying to get all the kids in the house," said
Talisha Stevenson, an adult relative and a resident of the home. "Everybody
ran in the house. There was screaming and hollering, and blood was
everywhere."

Eleven shots were fired initially, at about 8:20 p.m. Sunday at the birthday
party at the Village Creek Townhouses in the 5700 block of Anderson Street
in southeast Fort Worth.

After everybody rushed back into the apartment, the bullets started again,
whizzing through the window as the adults frantically tried to account for
everybody and determine who had been shot, Talisha Stevenson said.

"That's when my older sister said, 'My mama! Where's my mama?'" Talisha
Stevenson recalled.

They found Annette Stevenson, 48, in a bedroom. One of her granddaughters
would later recount for relatives how the grandmother had herded many of the
children into the bedroom, ordering them to get down on the floor.

My niece "thought [her grandmother] was getting on the floor with them, but
she was knelt down on her bed," Talisha Stevenson said. "Then we'd seen the
blood on the back of her shirt."

By the time emergency personnel arrived, Annette Stevenson was dead. More
than six hours later at Cook Children's Medical Center, her granddaughter
Queshawn Stevenson, 5, also succumbed to her injuries: gunshots wounds to
her neck and stomach.

On Monday, police continued to search for the gunman, a man who had been
seen being dropped off in another section of the apartment complex by the
driver of a green or black sedan shortly before the shooting, homicide Sgt.
J.D. Thornton said.

Four others -- the birthday girl, her 10-year-old sister, their 12-year-old
cousin and a 35-year-old cousin who had just stopped by to visit -- suffered
injuries that did not appear to be life-threatening, police said.

Nahtica Stevenson, who turned 9 on Monday, was treated for graze wounds to
her legs and released, but she remained at Cook Children's to be with her
sister, CashMo'nae Stevenson, and family.

CashMo'nae suffered gunshot wounds to her arm, shoulder and hand -- breaking
her wrist and elbow -- and underwent surgery Monday afternoon, Talisha
Stevenson said. She said the 12-year-old was treated for a graze wound to
the head.

She said the injured adult, identified by police as Sheila Moblin, is a
cousin who had just happened to stop by to visit with Annette Stevenson.

"We're just scarred right now. We just can't believe it," Talisha Stevenson
said. "I'm trying to get all my brothers and sister together. Everybody's
hurting right now."

Early birthday party

The party had started a few hours earlier.

Though Nahtica would not turn 9 until Monday, Tamesha Stevenson Shaw decided
to throw the party on Sunday to avoid having it on a school night. Relatives
and friends went to the town home, where Annette Stevenson lived with her
two daughters and some of her grandchildren.

The children, ages 1 to 16, had been playing outside all evening, shooting
Silly String at one another and listening to music. They then gathered
inside to sing Happy Birthday to Nahtica before moving to the porch for ice
cream and slices of the chocolate and vanilla cake adorned with teen
sensation Hannah Montana, Nahtica's favorite.

Talisha Stevenson said there initially appeared to be no warning before the
gunfire. She said, however, that some of the children later reported seeing
a car slowly pass by more than once.

Talisha Stevenson said the shots seemed to be coming from both sides of the
town home across the street, leading her to believe that there were two
shooters.

But Thornton said investigators believe that a single gunman armed with a
rifle did the shooting.

"I know there were some shots fired from the vicinity of an apartment across
the street, as well as the street in front of the house," Thornton said.

Thornton said that after the shooting, the gunman walked east. He said it
was unknown whether the gunman was picked up.

Victims remembered

Talisha Stevenson said she's not sure where her niece Queshawn was standing
when she was hit.

"I was trying to ask my brother about her, but he doesn't want to talk about
it," Talisha Stevenson said of Jerry Stevenson, Queshawn's father. "We don't
know if he went out and got her off the ground, but he brought her in the
house and laid her on the couch. She was still alive."

She described Queshawn, a kindergartner at S.S. Dillow Elementary School, as
quiet and shy. "She looked a lot like me. They'd think she was my little
girl," Talisha Stevenson said. "She was always happy and wanted to play with
her cousins."

She described Annette Stevenson as a good mother and grandmother who could
often be spotted talking with visitors on her front porch.

"Everybody would come around," Talisha Stevenson said. "They just liked to
sit on the porch and talk to her. She was funny."

She said her mother stayed home to help care for her grandchildren. In a
neighborhood where shootings from gang rifts occasionally ring out, her
grandkids' safety was her top priority, Talisha Stevenson said.

"She loved the grandkids," her daughter said. "She didn't want anything to
happen to her grandkids. Every time there was a shooting over there, she'd
want the kids to get down. She'd want to get the kids together."

Talisha Stevenson said her mother will never get to see the next batch of
grandchildren. Talisha is two months pregnant; her sister, Tamesha, is due
next month.


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