Seven months to the day since her murder, the family of a talented young Southern California volleyball star is asking for public’s help to find her killer.
Her radiant smile was hard to miss. And Daina Monroe’s family says her skills on the volleyball court shined as bright as that smile.
“She had an infectious smile,” said Terrell Ferguson, her uncle.
Ferguson said his niece appeared to have a bright future after working hard on her game throughout high school.
“I’ve watched her go from, ‘Oh, she needs a lot of work,’ to ‘Hey, all the colleges are after her now.,'” he said.
Monroe, who was lovingly called Gucci, had a promising future that was cut tragically short.
On Oct. 18, police say the 18-year-old Culver City high school grad was gunned down as she sat in a car with friends outside her mother’s house.
At a news conference outside of Inglewood Police Department Wednesday, her family had a message for her killer.
“You took a sweet innocent person that had nothing to do with gang life, nothing to do with illegal nefarious activity and you took them away from a dad, mom, brother sister, cousins, aunts for nothing. You took them away.”
Less than a month ago Monroe’s grandfather, Michael, who was fighting cancer was also shot and killed.
Michael Monroe was going through chemo treatment and had cancer, said Maisha Monroe Layne, Monroe’s daughter.
He was getting ready to go the hospital, going to the cleaners, but didn’t even make it out his car to get the cleaners.
“This is just I want to know why, whoever you are, to just turn yourself in,” she said.
