18-year-old shoots up house, kills 6-year-old girl

Knows likely target, says slain girl’s mom, but why?

By Andy Davis

Thursday, January 24, 2008

LITTLE ROCK — A day after police arrested a man in the killing of 6-year old Kamya Weathersby, the girl’s mother said she suspects the gunmen were targeting her boyfriend.

The boyfriend, Antoine Jones, had been friends with Kevin Banks, who is charged with capital murder in the death of Kamya.

But both Kamya’s mother, Lashandria Washington, and Jones said in interviews Wednesday that they don’t know what prompted the shooting.

“It shocked me,” Antoine Jones said. “I don’t understand why” the shooting happened.

The couple spoke to a reporter about the shooting after Banks, 18, made his first appearance before a judge Wednesday morning on charges of capital murder and committing a terroristic act.

Police say Banks and at least one other person fired more than 40 rounds into Washington’s house at 2715 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive early Dec. 29, many of the shots going into the bedroom where Kamya and her 3-year-old sister, Jasirae Vick, were sleeping.

At the hearing in Little Rock District Court, police detective Tommy Hudson said the shooting stemmed from a disputebetween “Mr. Banks and some people in the neighborhood, who have been shooting back and forth at each other over the last couple months.”

After the hearing, police spokesman Lt. Terry Hastings declined to elaborate on any suspected motive for the shooting-up of the house. At the request of police, Judge Lee Munson ordered the court records to be sealed. He also ordered Banks held without bail.

Jones, 28, said he and Banks both grew up in the neighborhood around where the shooting occurred, but hadn’t seen each other much recently.

Banks, the cousin of incarcerated drug kingpin Bobby Banks, had been in the custody of the Department of Human Services’ Youth Services Division at least as recently as last June, according to court records.

Kevin Banks had been sentenced to state custody on charges stemming from his arrest in August 2006 in the break-in of a house at 2823 S. Center St. Banks and Wayne Earl Jones, 18, were carrying pistols and threatened a neighborhood resident who attempted to confront them during the break-in, according to court records.

Washington said Wayne Earl Jones and Antoine Jones are not related.

Antoine Jones was released in 2005 from federal prison after serving 10 years for robbing a bank in Hope.

He said he hadn’t been in any trouble since he was released from prison and hadn’t been in any disputes with Banks or anyone else.

He and Washington, 26, have been together for about a year and a half. Three months ago she gave birth to his daughter, Aries.

Washington said she knew about Jones’ past but he seemed committed to doing better. She said he works from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the Odom’s Tennessee Pride plant in Little Rock, then attends night classes at Arkansas Baptist College, where he is studying business.

“It didn’t seem to me that he done anything to anybody,” Washington said. “We don’t bother people.”

Washington said she, Jones and her five children moved into the house on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive a day or so before Christmas. They had been living in a three-bedroom apartment in North Little Rock, and they wanted a bigger place with a yard.

The morning of the shooting, she, Jones and Aries were sleeping in a back bedroom. The two oldest children, Jalun, 10, and Nykia, 8, where staying with their grandmother.

When the gunfire started, “It sounded like something out of a movie,” Washington said. “I thought I was kind of dreaming.”

She said she got on the floor with Aries. At first, she thought the shooting was at another house. Then it sounded as if the gunmen were inside, she said.

“I just remember my kids screaming and hollering,” Washington said. “The last thing I heard Kamya say, she screamed out, ‘Mama.’ Then I didn’t hear her no more.”

When the gunfire stopped, she went to the front bedroom where Kamya and Jasirae had been sleeping. Jasirae ran to her.

“I called to Kamya and looked in the room and she was laying in the bed,” Washington said. “I thought she probably was still sleeping.”

Then she went over and turned her daughter over.

“I just seen a lot of blood,” she said.

Her family has experienced violence before. In November 2003, Bobby McGee, the father of Washington’s daughter Nykia, was shot and killed while being robbed at the Parkwood Apartments at 3510 S. Bryant St. in Little Rock. Two men were arrested in the robbery.

Washington said she doesn’t think McGee’s death has anything to do with Kamya’s.

“The guys that did that, they’re already locked up,” she said. “They were from out of town. They didn’t even know” McGee.

Since the shooting, the family has moved in with a relative in North Little Rock. Washington hasn’t been back inside the house where her daughter was shot.

She said Jasirae has been having nightmares and is scared by loud noises. At preschool Tuesday, she was so upset by a glass that fell and broke that Washington had to bring her home.

Washington said the shooting bothers her most when she’s alone, without friends or relatives to comfort her. She also thinks about it in the morning, when she wakes up her children.

Kamya “was the slowest one to get ready,” Washington said. “She would always be the last one to come out.

“Now, I’m missing that last one.” Information for this article was contributed by John Lynch of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Arkansas, Pages 11, 15 on 01/24/2008