DETROIT – The family of a woman gunned down in Detroit is speaking out as they are determined for her not to be remembered as a statistic while keeping her legacy alive.
Diamond Sylrice ‘Reese’ Chew was the 30-year-old woman shot and killed last weekend in a business plaza on Detroit’s west side near Davison and Livernois.
Her family rushed to the scene and came face-to-face with something nobody should have to live through.
Sylvia Taylor is Chew’s mother. Taylor says she has five children and refers to all of them as a light, but Chew was different; she was what Taylor called her high beam.
As a mother, looking through old photos and talking about memories now gets Taylor emotional.
“My baby girl, that’s what I called her, baby girl,” said Taylor while flipping through a photo album. “I can still hear her saying, ‘ma, ma.’”
Chew, who often went by Reese, was Taylor’s eldest daughter.
“Everybody loved her,” Taylor said. “She loved basketball, loved her makeup, loved doing hair, loved Halloween, and most of all loved all her nieces and nephews.”
Early Sunday (Sept. 25) morning, her motherly instincts were tingling, and she knew something wasn’t right.
“I was cold, teeth chattering cold, and I’m like real cold all of a sudden it’s like 3:30 in the morning, and I got a call 15 minutes later, and my (middle) daughter was panicking, ‘Ma, ma come, come, somebody shot Reese, somebody shot Reese,’” Taylor said.
Diamond’s aunt, Ciara Fowler, says as silly and social as Chew was, her murder has left many speechless.
“It’s devastating,” said Fowler. “It’s a numbing pain. When I got the phone call, it was the loudest silence I’ve ever experienced, and that’s the only way I could describe it.”
As Taylor is faced with burying her child and picking photos for an obituary, Detroit police said Chew’s killer is still at large.
“To see him do that, just careless and no regard to life, he needs to be off the street because, at the end of the day, none of us are safe as long as he’s walking around,” Taylor said.
Family and friends are having a candlelight vigil and balloon release in Chew’s honor Sunday, Oct. 2 at 6 p.m., 13350 Sidonie Avenue, Warren, MI 48089.
If you have any information on this shooting, you’re asked to call Detroit Police Department or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-Speak-up.
All tips to Crime Stoppers are anonymous. Click here to submit a tip online.