Thread: Popular sophomore gunned down in hall

what the heck is this world coming to????


http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/loc...,7163294.story

Suspect is said to have been a longtime friend who lured the victim with a text message

By Robert Nolin, Kathy Bushouse and Sofia Santana | South Florida Sun-Sentinel
November 13, 2008
The Dillard High School hallway was noisy Wednesday morning, crowded with students celebrating a recent football victory.

By the vending machines stood Amanda Collette, 15, a popular magnet school student with a butterfly tattoo. She had been summoned there, a friend said, via text message from a longtime friend.

Police said that friend, Teah Wimberly, 15, shot and killed Amanda with a single bullet to the torso.

"If she knew she was in trouble, she didn't show it," said Tim Kennedy, 16, who spoke to Amanda moments before her death. "She was being her goofy self."

Then a shot echoed in the hallway.

"We just heard a loud pow," said Deandrea Franklin, 15.

"She just fell, and everyone started running like crazy," said Hermond Davis, a 14-year-old freshman.

Franklin said she saw Wimberly run away and hop a nearby fence.

That was about 11 a.m. By afternoon, Amanda, an aspiring dancer, was dead. Teah, a budding jazz musician, was charged with her murder.

"We are devastated, devastated over what happened," school superintendent James Notter said.

At first, officials thought Amanda had suffered a seizure; her wound was not apparent and there was no visible blood, police spokesman Sgt. Frank Sousa said.

Within minutes, Teah called 911 operators from the nearby Capt. Crab's Take-Away restaurant on Sunrise Boulevard to say she was involved in a shooting. She had a pistol on her when she was arrested, but cooperated with investigators, Sousa said.

The 1,787-student school was locked down for much of Wednesday. Frenzied parents rushed to the scene in northwest Fort Lauderdale. The school sent out letters telling parents what occurred and that counseling would be available today for grieving students.

Both suspect and victim were sophomores and had grown up together, attending the same elementary and middle schools. They were each in performing arts magnet programs. Amanda studied ballet and Teah played tuba in the marching band.

Police were sorting through motives for the killing, including a falling out between the friends.

"This does appear to be an incident connected to a dispute between both of them," Sousa said. "This is an isolated incident."

Besides the tuba, Teah played the saxophone and bassoon, and in 2006 won a scholarship to a music camp hosted by the Gold Coast Jazz Society.

For the past year, however, Teah displayed behaviorial problems at school and underwent psychological counseling. Her problems started when her father, Jevon Wimberly, was sentenced to 25 years in prison for attempted second-degree murder after shooting a man in the shoulder, court documents said.

"All my life I've had my daddy and our bond is really strong," Teah wrote in a letter to the judge who sentenced her father. "When I found out he was gone I was really sad."

Teah lives with her paternal grandmother, Shirley Wimberly, in Fort Lauderdale and rarely sees her mother, Char Merritt Aukland, who lives in Virginia, the court records said.

Amanda's friends and relatives milled about the emergency room at Broward General Medical Center on Wednesday afternoon, attempting to console each other.

Amanda's body was taken to the Broward Medical Examiner's Office for an autopsy.

Teah was being held by police.

At her home, stricken family members passed in and out. Lawyer Gary Kollin read a statement from Teah's family: "They hope to God their daughter and granddaughter will receive the help she needs."

Staff Writers Jon Burstein, Alexia Campbell, John Holland, Rafael Olmeda, Ihosvani Rodriguez and Staff Researchers Gail Bulfin and Barbara Hijek contributed to this report.