It would be the worst phone call Jonathan Phillips ever received: His 7-year-old daughter, Ava Phillips, had been shot in the head and killed.
The call shocked Phillips, as he’d left Ava and his son with their mother for a family gathering at an Atlanta, Georgia, apartment complex on Saturday night, he told Channel 2 News. But that family party had turned sour, he’d later find out, ending with his daughter killed, her mother arrested, and a 23-year-old man charged with murder.
“It’s just unbearable pain,” Phillips said. “The worst thing imaginable.”
Cops say an argument broke out for an unreleased reason at the Camden Vantage Apartment complex around 10:15 p.m. and shots were fired. Cops were called, but Ava was dead with a bullet wound to her head by the time officers arrived at the scene.
“Any death is tragic, but when there’s a child involved, it really hits home,” Atlanta police Deputy Chief Charles Hampton Jr. said at a press conference Monday.
While Ava was killed Saturday, her alleged killer, Deshon Collins, remained at-large on Monday, Atlanta police said, with a warrant out for his arrest. The girl’s mother, 44-year-old Kemeka Springfield, was taken into custody on Monday.
Authorites have not specified their exact roles in Ava’s death, but Collins faces a murder charge while Springfield faces charges of aggravated assault and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony.
Tia Wilson, who lives in the complex, described the apartment complex as looking “like a literal trauma scene” when she came home Saturday night.
“We were approaching my door, you just heard chaos,” Wilson told 11 Alive News. “You heard, like, screaming…multiple people screaming, you had dogs barking.”
The entire incident was captured on camera and turned over to Atlanta police, the apartment complex said in a statement Monday.
Hampton characterized the incident as a domestic dispute that escalated once guns were drawn. The deputy chief said it’s not certain whether Ava was targeted or caught in the crossfire, but he suspects the girl was struck by a stray bullet.
Regardless of why shots rang out, Phillips says he’s heartbroken to lose his daughter. He says she was always smiling and loved traveling with him.
“She was a good girl,” Phillips said. “Man, she didn’t deserve this. It’s just this violence.”
Phillips, who could not be reached by The Daily Beast on Tuesday, said Ava was the baby of the family and loved to “call the shots” as she would “boss around her brothers.”
A GoFundMe set up to help cover funeral expenses had raised nearly $7,000 by Tuesday afternoon. In a description for the fundraiser, it said Ava was “taken tragically by a senseless act of gun violence.”
“She was amazing, man,” Phillips said of his daughter. “She liked to smile. She liked to play. She liked to travel with me. I took her with me everywhere.”
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