8-year-old girl who watched mother be gunned down will be star witness in trial
8-year-old girl who watched mother be gunned down will be star witness in trial
An eight-year-old girl who witnessed her mother’s murder on Christmas day 2010 in Los Angeles will give evidence during the trial of the alleged killers.
Neveah Jackson was just three when her innocent mother Kashmier James was gunned down at 10.20pm in a suspected gangland execution.
James, a 25-year-old nurse, had just stepped out of her car on a South Los Angeles Road when she was shot nine times. Neveah was sitting in the back seat of the vehicle at the time.
It is thought the gunmen were gang members who mistook James for someone else.
Her daughter spoke to ABC7.com before the trial and said she wanted to help the foundation created in her mother’s memory, which aims to counter gang culture in south Los Angeles.
Neveah said: ‘I’ll sing at church, I’ll dance at charities.’
Last year, she asked her family: ‘I don’t want you guys to ever hide anything about my mommy. I want to know.’
Witnesses to the 2010 murder said three men in a blue Chevrolet Tahoe approached James and shot her after she stopped her car on the junction of 85th Street and Western Avenue.
Darnell Deshon Houston, now 34, Lamar McKnight, 24, and Ezekiel Simon, 16, were charged in 2011 with murder and attempted murder.
Neveah is due to testify at the trial of Houston and McKnight, due to begin today.
Simon, who was a juvenile at the time of the killing, is being dealt with as part of a plea agreement. He will appear in court in August at a probation and sentencing hearing.
Neveah’s grandmother, Kim Evans – James’s mom – said about the trial: ‘The only thing I can pray to God is to continue to give me the strength to be able to deal with it.’
