It's been 15 months since someone shot and killed a Pulaski County mother as she carried her 5-year-old daughter to her car. The family of April Harris is once again asking the public for help.
“We're asking someone out there who knows something,” said Tammie Flemming, mother of Harris and grandmother of the 5-year-old girl in her arms at the time of the shooting. “No one commits a crime and gets away with it, and it's time to stop the violence. It's time to stop killing each other.”
Flemming has been scanning her memories daily for some indication of why a man in a ski mask jumped from bushes at her apartment complex on a cold January morning. She asks why did he shoot her granddaughter as Harris carried her to the car while one of her other four kids saw it happen? The child has recovered, but is scarred.
“I think about my child all the time. I miss her,” Flemming said. “I think about everything about her. The way she smiled. The way she laughed.”
“The safest place for a 5-year-old child is in the arms of their mother,” Pulaski County Sheriff Eric Higgins said. “To have that child not only be injured, but to witness their mother being killed, and that's tragic.”
There's already an $11,000 dollar reward for information, but investigators think the public needs a reminder. Flemming is also asking for donations to raise the reward even higher. Fifteen months on, detectives don't say the case is cold, they just need help chipping away.
“We're of the opinion that no one could commit a crime like this without telling somebody,” investigator Chris Lowery said. “Somebody knows something and, unfortunately, there's a belief with a lot of folks to not talk to the police.”
“I am asking the public. I am asking the community to help me solve my daughter's murder,” Flemming said.