Haines City police are looking for two people in connection with a Dec. 27 drive-by shooting that killed a 33-year-old woman.
Asiya La’Trece Roberts-Husband, 33, of Haines City was in a vehicle that was shot from behind in darkness on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Way near Avenue K. A 41-year-old woman was hospitalized, HCPD said.
At the time of the shooting, police released surveillance video showing a sedan coming to a stop behind a white Ford Transport van that was carrying Roberts-Husband and a friend and opening fire.
In a news release on Aug. 29, police said more surveillance footage, captured at a nearby business shortly before the incident, shows a vehicle they suspect was used in the shooting, along with two people: Jy’Asia Jakia Denise Youmans and an unknown man. The vehicle is a silver Mercedes C-300.
Police said Youmans “is believed to have information on the homicide.”
Roberts-Husband, a 2010 graduate of Ridge Community High School, worked at LongHorn Steakhouse in Winter Haven and assisted her mother, Elrica Roberts, at her business, Rica’s Print Pack and Ship Center in Haines City, according to a news release. She left behind a 2-year-old son.
“She was always happy. She loved people. She always wanted to help her friends. She was helping a friend when she was taken from us,” her mother, Elrica Roberts, said in a prepared statement in January.
Police ask anyone with information on the vehicle, Youmans, the unknown man or the shooting that night to contact the police department at 863-421-3636 or Heartland Crime Stoppers Florida at 888-400-8477, the website www.heartlandcrimestoppers.com or the free P3 tips app.
Heartland Crime Stoppers is offering a $5,000 reward in addition to the Haines City police reward of $2,500, for a total reward of $7,500 for an information that leads to an arrest.
“We have continued to investigate this case the last 10 months,” Haines City Police Chief Jay Hopwood said in the release, “and we will continue to investigate it until the person or persons responsible for Asiya’s death are held responsible for their despicable actions.”
This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Police seek two people in Dec. 27 drive-by shooting that killed Haines City mother
Reporting by Lakeland Ledger / The Ledger
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
