LAWRENCE, Ind. (WTHR) – Shiloh Britton’s smile - that’s what her mother remembers.
“She really was a great person. She was extremely smart. She was extremely talented,” says Special Prunty of her daughter.
And early in the morning, last December 6, the 16-year-old Lawrence high school student was also extremely vulnerable.
Shiloh’s mom had just taken one child to school and returned to the family’s Lawrence apartment to get Shiloh and her brother.
That day, a neighbor, Katurah Allen, told us “at seven I just heard the mom screaming and yelling. Help me help me. My baby, my baby, my baby.”
Another neighbor said, “I just seen blood. That’s all I seen. And then I ran back out. She was like my baby’s in there my baby’s in there. So when I ran back there I see her slumped over.”
Shiloh died of a gunshot.
The family thinks a male acquaintance came to the home in the Maison Garden Apartments near 42nd Street and Post Road, while they slept. Shiloh may have let him in not realizing the potential danger.
"She had not been here long enough to experience enough life to recognize when something is off about somebody,“ said Shiloh's mother.
The family still finds it all hard to understand.
“This man came into my home and murdered her," said Special. “She was just naive. And it killed her.“
Jealousy may have been the motive she says.
Whatever led to that fatal gunshot, the victim’s mother says, “I heard nothing.“
No one in the family heard anything. No pop or bang of a gunshot. Neighbors right next-door heard nothing either.
Was a silencer used? Unclear. But the damage was done. The killer left the home.
“That’s evil. That’s evil,” Special says. “There is nothing you can imagine or dream up that she could have done to deserve for you to shoot her in her bedroom in her home with her little brothers next-door to her.“
Police asks anyone with information call the Lawrence police or Crime Stoppers at 317-262-TIPS.
Meanwhile, her mother, who has left the state with the children, said “I will fight for her. Until the day I leave here.“
And she warns “If he did it to my daughter he has that in him. And he will do it again.”