6-Year-Old Girl Fatally Shot While Mother Was Out Planning Her Son’s Funeral

A Dallas mother has lost two of her children just days apart. Authorities say a 6-year-old girl was fatally shot in an apartment Wednesday.

The tragedy unfolded while the girl’s mother was away making funeral arrangements for her teenage son who was killed by gun violence.

A woman who said she was the girl’s aunt told police that the child’s mother was at a funeral home when the tragedy took place making arrangements to bury her 14-year-old son, Ah’bralen Rider, who was found shot on Dec. 29.

Officers responded to a shooting around 2:40 p.m. on the 2100 block of North Fitzhugh Avenue. On the scene, they found the 6-year-old Aylayna Ross. She was taken to Children’s Medical Center in Dallas where she succumbed to her injuries, NBCDFW News reported.

According to police, Aylayna was inside the apartment with two adults, two juveniles, and an unsecured firearm. Authorities arrested 19-year-old Damariya Sowels, who faces charges of tampering with evidence.

Sowels admitted to police he brought two guns into the home and placed them on top of a PlayStation in a third-floor bedroom. After the shooting, he admitted that he took the Mac 10 firearm that was involved in the shooting and put it in his backpack along with the handgun. He then hid the backpack in the garage before police arrived, “intending to impair its availability as evidence in the investigation of the shooting.”

The guns were found by authorities during their search.