A family is pleading for help and a new reward is available after 20-year-old Nyah Hairston was found shot off I-495 near Landover Road last month. News4’s Dominique Moody reports.
A family is pleading for help and a new reward is available after a 20-year-old woman was found shot in her car on the Capital Beltway (Interstate 495) near Landover Road in Prince George's County, Maryland, last month.
Police are still working to learn who shot and killed Nyah Hairston and why.
Hairston’s car was found in a ditch. Officers had to break a window to get her from the car before she died at a hospital.
“You can’t just say, ‘Well, that happened and we need to move on.’ We’ll never be able to move on,” her great-aunt Florence James said.
Hairston was headed home from work and was 10 minutes from home when she was shot on Friday, May 3, loved ones say.
She worked for UPS and as a hairstylist. She was a shy kid with a kind spirit, and she was driven to become successful, her aunt said.
Maryland State Police say they have spent the past month searching for video of the scene and looking for clues that could lead to suspects.
Investigators preliminariily believe the crime was random.
“We have reason to believe that it is going to be random. We can’t prove that at this point but all roads lead to that,” Lt. Kyle Clark said.
Investigators have received little information on Hairston’s case. They say the timing and location of the shooting have presented some challengers, including that it was raining and there was a lot of traffic.
Hairston’s family said they’re hoping the shooter will be caught.
“Somebody saw something, somebody knows something and someone has heard something,” James said.
“We definitely want everybody to keep talking about Nyah, speaking about Nyah, knowing that Nyah was a decent person,” she said.
A reward of up to $20,000 is available for information that could lead to an arrest. Anyone with potentially relevant information is asked to contact police.
