PORT ARTHUR, Texas — An entire year has passed since a Port Arthur mother was shot and killed while sitting on a front porch, and the police department says it hasn't received a single tip as to who might be responsible for the murder.
Roneshia Collins was there on the night of the shooting, and said she was hit by the gunfire too. Collins was sitting on a porch with 3 friends when shots were fired, hitting all four of them. Her best friend Jasmine Newman didn't survive.
"Jasmine, she's got kids, and their father don't know how to tell their kids that their momma's gone" Collins said. "They got to grow up without a momma."
Now, Collins is pleading for anyone that has information about the murder to go to police in hopes of getting justice for her friend.
"Someone knows something," Collins said. "Someone needs to speak. Port Arthur's small, so why hasn't no one said anything?"
Newman was 22 years old when she was shot on October 20, 2019, in the 1100 block of Vicksburg Avenue near 11th Street. Investigators said she was a mother of two, and an 'innocent bystander' in the situation. Police called the crime a 'cowardly act of violence.'
"She was my sister, my friend, and my protector," Collins said. "Now that she's not here, she's just here with me in spirit, it's just hard to go on because she still hasn't got justice."
Family and friends gathered on Vicksburg Tuesday to remember Newman's life. Collins brought a cross and balloons in honor of her friend's life.
Newman's mother left flowers near the spot where her daughter lost her life.
The family's pastor was also there to pray with the family as they remembered the 22-year-old's life.
Darrell Smothers' daughter was a childhood friend of Newman, and he told 12News after the shooting it broke his heart when he heard about her death.
"She was always a good spirit, beautiful soul, and the world is going to be a little bit worse without her I think," Smothers said.
Family members said she would have turned 23 on October 21, and had been celebrating her birthday on the same weekend she was gunned down.
Her mother spoke to 12News after Newman's death. She pleaded for those responsible to come forward.
"All I want them to do is turn themselves in because justice has to be done," she said. "Because I'm hurting and that's my only baby and they didn't have to do that, they didn't have to do her like that because she didn't mess with anybody, nobody at all."
