May 5, 2008 6:13 pm US/Eastern
Police Search For Man Who Killed Over Cigarettes
BALTIMORE (WJZ) ―
A woman is murdered over cigarettes. Police are asking for help as they try to catch her killer.
Derek Valcourt reports it happened in Southwest Baltimore over the weekend.
Police say the killer asked the victim and her boyfriend for something and when he didn't get it, he shot her in the head.
A makeshift memorial marks the spot on Brunswick Street where 29-year-old Dawn Shipley fell to the ground after being shot by a killer who, police say, wanted cigarettes.
Family members were left devastated by the tragedy that happened just after 1 a.m. Saturday.
Police say that's when Shipley and her boyfriend were walking home from a corner store and were approached by the man asking for cigarettes.
Dawn refused to hand them over.
"This angered the man. At some point he engaged her verbally, some words were exchanged. He produced a handgun and shot her," said Nicole Monroe with Baltimore City Police.
Shipley died a short time later at Shock Trauma. As friends of the victim and her family are coping with grief, police are now turning to the public for help.
They're asking any witnesses to come forward.
"The person that done this to my niece, if he's any kind of a human being, he would turn hisself in," said a relative.
Dawn's boyfriend, an eyewitness to the crime, is working with detectives to help identify the killer.
Elisa Shipley, the victim's sister-in-law, says she's now worried about Dawn's 9-year-old son Norman who is left grieving the loss of his mother.
"I don't want him to think God took her. God didn't take her. God accepted her, but he didn't take her. Evil took her, it wasn't her time," said Elisa.
Her family says they don't have enough money to cover funeral expenses, so they've set up the Dawn Shipley Memorial Fund. Donations can be made at any Provident Bank Branch.
Anyone with information on the case can remain anonymous and earn some reward money by calling Metro Crime Stoppers at
1-866-7-LOCKUP.
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