WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (WGHP) — Imagine being fast asleep as stray bullets enter your home. That was the reality for one Winston-Salem family this weekend.
Unfortunately, a woman has died as a result. It is the city’s 21st homicide of the year. It stemmed from a nearby gunfight between minors.
One of those bullets randomly hit the side of a home on the 1200 block of 14th Street, killing 61-year-old Donna Blackmon.
“She woke me up at 4:10 am. By 4:15, she was dead. She was in my arms. She looked at me and smiled and she closed her eyes and died,” said Lorenza Blackmon, Donna’s husband.
It’s an image Lorenza will never stop replaying.
“‘I’d been shot’, and that’s all she said,” he said.
Just after 4 a.m. on Sunday, Winston-Salem Police Department says two groups in two separate cars were driving up and down 14th street, firing guns from their cars.
“It was like flashing lights,” said Daron Lewis, Donna’s nephew.
“These shooters don’t understand when they let bullets go, there’s no getting them back,” said Lt. Gregory Dorn with the WSPD.
Multiple bullets hit the northwest side of the home.
“The caliber round that hit my wife, it didn’t just take her life, it broke her body up inside,” Lorenza said.
The two had been together for 42 years.
Donna was known as a safe haven for her nephews, who also lived with her, and a reliable smile to passing neighbors.
“They loved her just as much as I did,” Lorenza said.
Her husband works on cars for a living and can fix just about anything in his house. But what hurts him most is this was one job where he just couldn’t fix the problem.
“I got all them brains and knowledge that I have and skills, but my wife died in my arms. I didn’t have enough damn skills or effort to save my wife,” Lorenza said.
A 15-year-old suspect was arrested on Monday in connection to the shooting and charged with murder.
