Community Rallies Behind Family Of Girl Fatally Shot In Camden; $50K Reward Offered
By Trang Do
CAMDEN, NJ (CBS) -- Camden County police are now offering a $50,000 reward to find and convict the people responsible for the shooting death of 8-year-old Gabrielle Hill Carter.
At the same time, the community is coming forward with donations to help her family.
Several families and businesses donated money to double the reward fund over the weekend.
A Camden-based business is supporting the family in its own unique way. Airbrush artists from Da Shop on Fed are hard at work, using their talents this week to to help Gabby's grieving family.
She died Friday, after she was struck in the head by a stray bullet on Wednesday night.
"She was kindhearted, she got along with everybody that she ever ran into and to know her was to love her," said Anthony Hill, Gabby's father, who exclusively spoke to Eyewitness News.
Hill showed up to the mobile truck where the artists were airbrushing the shirts to personally thank them.
"We wasn't expecting it," he said. "It came out of the blue, it was a blessing. I just want to say thank God. I appreciate everyone that showed up."
The shop is providing memorial shirts for free of charge for Gabby's family and anyone in the community who wants one.
"We all kind of felt like, it could have easily been any of us," said Lea Guzman, who works at Da Shop on Fed. "We all have kids too, and we just wanted come out and give back to them like they've been giving to us."
For the city of Camden, losing little Gabby to senseless gun violence is a tragedy that's all too familiar. Jessica Torres' daughter is growing up without a father because of it.
"It's going on five years and we still haven't had justice, we still haven't gotten justice for him," she said.
But they plead for justice for Gabby. They hope a $50,000 reward, increased by donations from the community, will break the code of the streets and bring a young girl's killers to justice.
"I just wish that whoever did this gets justice and comes forth, either by their own or if anybody got any information about it to let us know," Hill said. "So that they can be apprehended and that we can get justice for our daughter."
The shop is expecting to produce some 200 shirts in time for Gabby's funeral.
Vahan and Danielle Gureghian, whose company manages Camden Community Charter School, where Gabby was set to attend the third grade, donated to the reward fund. They are also paying for her funeral expenses.
