Shooting victim’s family seeks justice after house party turns deadly
TUCSON, Ariz. (13 News) - The family of Marissa Jones Anderson is scrambling for justice after she was shot in the head at a vacant home on Tucson’s eastside.
Josiah Williamking Walker, 18, is facing a manslaughter charge in Anderson’s death but the family said that’s not enough.
Anderson’s sisters, Crystal Jones Hart and Jamie Comeau, said the last week has been a nightmare.
“Our children were raised as sisters, not cousins because we’re a really close-knit family and so they’re screaming at the top of their lungs and so I couldn’t understand what they were saying at first and they kept saying ‘She’s dead! She’s dead!’ and I’m like ‘Who?’ and they said Marissa and I was like ‘no, not Marissa’,” Hart said. “If it was going to be anybody it wasn’t going to be Marissa.”
Court documents show Ellery De Ruyter was one of around 20 people at the abandoned home for a party last Monday. He allegedly brought a loaded shotgun to the event that he was showing off to people. His friend, the 18-year-old Walker, asked to see the gun and Ruyter handed it over.
The document goes on to say that “he was drunk when he was handling the shotgun and stated the victim walked in front of the barrel while he was handling the gun.”
“If he would have not brought in a loaded shotgun,” Comeau said, “this would have never happened.”
On top of disagreeing with the charges, the family said it is working double time to raise money for funeral costs. A GoFundMe was created and it can be found HERE.
“My sister… she’s a school aid,” Comeau said. “She doesn’t make a lot of money, her husband’s on disability. They clearly were not expecting this so they don’t have the savings to bury somebody around $14,000 is what we have to come up with in like two weeks because unfortunately, you do have a time (limit).”
For a loved one they want to say a proper goodbye to.
“She wasn’t a bad child at all,” Hart said. “She just graduated in May, she just graduated high school, she was going to start Pima coming up, she was a good girl. She wasn’t out there being gang-related, she wasn’t doing drugs, she was at a local teen party having some drinks that most people do right out of high school.”
Court documents also claim Walker fled the scene after the shooting and told at least one person he was planning on fleeing the country. He is being held on a $250,000 bond.
Be sure to subscribe to the 13 News YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/@13newskold
Copyright 2024 13 News. All rights reserved.
