INDIANAPOLIS – A violent weekend leaves five people dead following a series of shootings around Indianapolis.
The last of those shootings took place Sunday night on the northeast side.
IMPD officers were waved down by a woman in a car who’d been shot. That victim, Marysa Collins, died in the hospital less than two weeks after her 19th birthday.
“I’m devastated. I just never expected this to happen,” said the victim’s mother Amber Shumpert.
Marysa’s mother Amber recalls how her daughter graduated high school a year early and began classes at Ivy Tech to be a neonatal nurse.
“She learned sign language because she knew a lot of kids that can’t speak use sign language. She just wanted to help babies. She loved babies,” said Shumpert.
Amber believes her daughter was killed by a longtime friend, for reasons that remain unclear.
“I want him to go prison and I want to face him in court so he can see what he did to my family. That’s all I want. I want justice,” said Shumpert.
In additional to Marysa’s murder, four other people were shot to death over the weekend, starting Friday with a deadly shooting on Delmont Drive. 16-year-old Karla Vasquez was killed inside the JW Marriott downtown Saturday, followed by a man fatally shot inside a car on Georgetown and another man was murdered Sunday at the Budget 8 Inn.
All those killings brought the total number of homicides in Indy this year to 220, a number that really represents families being torn apart.
“You know it sucks having to bury your kids before you bury your parents. It’s just a hard one to live through,” said Marysa’s father Lance Collins.
“These are babies. I shouldn’t be burying my child,” said Shumpert.
As always anyone with information on any of the five weekend homicides is still asked to contact Crime Stoppers at 317-262-TIPS.
