HAMPTON, Va. (WAVY) – In the aftermath of a shooting earlier this week that killed three people at a Hampton apartment complex, family and neighbors were left to lament the loss of their loved-ones.
Neighbors heard shots Monday evening in the Bay Creek Apartments. Those shots killed 24-year-old DeJonte’ Nash and his girlfriend, Destiny Layton, who was eight months pregnant with their child. The unborn child died also.
Nash died at the scene, and Layton and their unborn child died at the hospital.
“It’s hard,” said DeJonte’ Nash’s grandmother, Audrey Nash. “It’s really hard to know that he is gone. We just lost his mother a couple of years ago.”
Layton, according to her mother, Alissa Hendry, was someone who loved people.
“She was funny and bright with a big heart,” Hendry said.
After she was shot, DeJonte’ Nash took off running. He made it about 50 yards before falling down face-first, shot dead.
“I’m his grandmother…I feel so empty,” Audrey Nash said. “I couldn’t fathom his being gone, and it is just hard for me. It’s hard because it is so fresh.”
Hendry has still not fully processed what happened.
“Destiny has four beautiful young children who have not yet been told,” Hendry said. “She loved life, her children. I still don’t know exactly what happened. … I just can’t talk about it.”
A neighbor, Mary Little, lives in the apartment near where DeJonte’ Nash’s body was found.
“What I heard was gunshots, and they sound(ed) like a machine gun, OK,” Little said, “and when I came outside … the guy was laying right there, and he was already dead, and then the ambulance and stuff came out. Police came up.”
Back at her home, Audrey Nash, through tears, said “he is never going to come through those doors again. He is never going to call us. He’s never going to see his daughters again. His dad is going through some stuff right now. This was his only child.”
Audrey gave us a picture of father and son, and she admits DeJonte’ had been in trouble more than once,
“We begged him, everybody begged him, ‘DeJonte’ get your life together,'” Audrey Nash said.
Said Little: “We understand, they were after her, and he stood in front of her, and he started running and she started running.”
Their families are brokenhearted, and their lament is palpable.
“People were out there,” Audrey Nash said. “People talk. Streets talk, but every time the streets talk they don’t get nobody, and that’s what makes me so upset that much more.”