The Orleans Parish Coroner's Office has identified the woman shot dead this weekend in an apparent drive-by shooting in Algiers, the seventh killed in the past six weeks in a chilling spike in lethal violence against women.
Chala Roberts, 24, was shot to death in a vehicle down the street from her house on Memorial Day.
Six of the seven women killed have been the mothers of young children — Roberts had a 7-year-old daughter — and only one of the seven cases has been cleared. Police have arrested Henry Talley Jr. in connection with the May 10 domestic-violence killing of 28-year-old Asia Davis, his ex-girlfriend.
The NOPD did not respond to an email requesting further information on Roberts' killing. It wasn't clear Thursday whether it was related to any other fatal shooting or if it had been a retaliatory or targeted attack.
Monday's killing
Roberts' mother, Verlethia Brooks, said Thursday that she had last seen Roberts leave their Algiers home Monday to visit a friend.
An hour later, her son — Roberts' brother — got a call from an acquaintance delivering terrible news: Chala had just been shot in a car down the street.
Brooks hurried down the block to find a crime scene at Casa Calvo and Socrates streets lined with police tape, and officers there told her that her daughter had been shot and taken to the hospital. Brooks rushed there to be by Roberts' side, using a photo to help find her way to her daughter. Doctors looked at the photo, took Brooks into a nearby room and told her that her daughter was gone.
Brooks broke. She had lost a child before — a daughter who’d been sick. Now, she'd lost two, and her 7-year-old granddaughter, Alexis, had lost her mother.
On Thursday, aunts, cousins and grandmas were rallying around Alexis as they planned to celebrate her mother's life in the coming week.
An active investigation
Police told Brooks on Wednesday they are still actively investigating Roberts’ death, and she hopes they catch her daughter’s killers.
Roberts’ cousin, Renisha Barnes, said losing Roberts has forever changed her family. She wants to know why, she said.
“I know they’re not going to come forward … but I just want justice because she didn’t deserve that,” Barnes said. “They didn’t think. They didn’t use their (minds), and I wish they would have.”
A working mother
Roberts was born near the Iberville public housing complex before living much of her life in eastern New Orleans and spending the last four years with her family in Algiers. She worked as a server at Tackle Box, a French Quarter restaurant — a job she held for a while and enjoyed, Brooks said.
Brooks described her daughter as fun, happy and a good parent. Her favorite thing to do was dance.
“That’s her lifeline — dancing,” Brooks said Thursday.
Barnes said that Roberts’ goal was to do nails for a living. She had just bought products to start practicing more in hopes of going to school for cosmetology and picking up clients.
Above all, Roberts’ daughter was her life, according to Barnes.
“Chala didn’t have the world, but (Alexis) was her world,” Barnes said.
Both Brooks and Barnes said that Roberts was well-known and well-liked. She loved to dance and was the life of the party. Roberts was well-mannered, but was also known to stand up for herself. She was a strong presence, her family said, but never spiteful.
“She’s not the kind of person to go around looking for trouble,” Brooks said.
Barnes said she thinks Roberts’ may have been near her killers intended target or was mistakenly identified, though Barnes rejected the idea that killing is ever a form of justice. She directed her anger toward Roberts’ attackers.
“Who made you God to make you think you could take someone’s life?” Barnes said. “It’s … senseless, and I don't think I will ever grasp the understanding of it.”