DETROIT – Detroit police need help solving a murder that left extremely few clues behind on the city’s west side.
Aja Booth, 25, had just stopped by her brother’s house on Appoline Street when a random shot came through the kitchen window and killed her.
“We heard like a thud,” said Booth’s brother Lanardo Booth. “She said what was that? I’m like, ‘What was what?’”
Aja Booth died in her brother’s arms on Oct. 3 at 7:55 p.m. Booth was doing the dishes in his home while conversing with her when the shot was fired through the kitchen window, hitting her chest and killing her.
The 25-year-old had a strong will to live as she was a kidney transplant recipient in 2015. Her body rejected the kidney, and she had just made the transplant list again when that single reckless shot was fired.
“I was devastated,” said their mother, Ramona Booth. “I was at work when it happened. My son called me and said she had been shot. So I rushed home from work, and I got there. Before I could get in, they said she was dead.”
“She was in the kitchen,” said Detroit police Commander Mike McGinnis. “The curtain was closed, so you couldn’t even have seen an individual standing there, and a shot came through the window and struck her. I can’t imagine what it felt like in that house, probably for minutes or longer, not even knowing what happened.”
McGinnis says that every time a shot is fired, that bullet stops somewhere.
“And it’s so sad in this case that it stopped into someone that is in their home, in their families home, in their kitchen,” McGinnis said.
“I want somebody to step up,” Lanardo Booth. “Somebody heard anything, know something. We just want an answer.”
Police are going door to door to find out if anyone has heard or seen anything.
