Drive-By Shooting in NE Kills Girl, 15, Sitting in Car

Lowe, a D.C. sanitation worker, said she had returned home about 2:30 a.m. yesterday after finishing an overtime shift to find that Myesha had not yet come home.

She was told by family members that a detective had called three times but wouldn't say why he was calling.

Lowe called the police, who told her to file a missing persons report. She then starting wandering nearby streets, looking in vain for her daughter. Word finally came via an aunt whose name and number were on the back of an identification card Myesha carried.

" 'Come to Howard now, come to Howard,' " Lowe said she was told. " 'She's not going to make it.' "

By yesterday afternoon, the decision to take Myesha off life support seemed a foregone conclusion. "I'm really going to miss my daughter, because she always said, 'Princess is home,' " Lowe said.

Myesha would often ask for "smooches" before her mother left for work, Lowe said. On Saturday, she said, mother and daughter skipped the ritual, for no real reason. "I wish we hadn't."

Annice Rush, a family friend, spent most of yesterday by Lowe's side. Three weeks ago, Rush's father died of cancer, she said, and Lowe "stuck with me. She's been there with me ever since. . . . I can't say I know what she's going through, losing her daughter."

Lowe said she is trying to remain strong. "I have six other kids besides Myesha," she said. "I have to be strong."

Residents said that the area where Myesha was shot -- a community of brick rowhouses along tree-lined streets -- is normally a place where children ride their bicycles on the sidewalks and neighbors greet each other by name while walking their dogs.

Scott Pearson, 33, who lives a few doors away from where Myesha was shot, said he could not recall another shooting in the four years he has lived there.

Garber, who said the shooting occurred in front of her home, said that shortly before midnight Saturday, she and her husband, Scott, were watching television when they heard a burst of gunfire and the sound of breaking glass. She said they immediately dived to the floor.

While her husband crawled into the kitchen to call police, Cindi Garber moved closer to the front window so she could hear what was happening.

Scott Garber said that after calling police, he went outside and saw the teenager slumped over in the back seat of the car, with neighbors and her hysterical friends nearby.

Cindi Garber said that shell casings were scattered across the street and that a bullet came through a second-story window stairwell of her rowhouse. Police told her that the bullet had ricocheted off the girls' car.