De'Maree Adkins: 8-year-old shot to death by gunman after car crash

De'Maree Adkins was shot and killed early Saturday, Feb. 25 2017 after she and her mother were involved in a car accident in Houston, Texas. Police are searching for several suspects.

Eight-year-old De'Maree Adkins was described as a "girly-girl." Someone who was always attached to her mother. "She was going to be somebody special," her grandfather told Houston media. Days after the unthinkable occurred at a Houston intersection, her family is still trying to put the pieces of their life back together.

Police said De'Maree's mother and she were traveling in a car approaching the corner of  Beltway 8 and West Fuqua when they collided with another vehicle.

"I called her name and I said, Are you OK?" Thomas said she asked her daughter.

"Yeah I'm OK. What happened mama?" the little girl reportedly asked her mother.

If that wasn't a terrible occurrence, what happened seconds later, was horrific: Her mother, Latoyia Thomas said that a woman drove up, jumped out of the car and began blasting his firearm, striking the third-grader.

"I don't know who it was and I don't know why she was shooting," Thomas said.

Houston police said that a 19-year-old has been arrested in the murder, which has rattled the fun-loving city of Houston, Texas.

Thomas described the crash to reporters: "I was going through the light and through my peripheral vision I could see a car coming at a high rate of speed. We collided."

The girl's grandfather, Melvin Jarmon, said the arrest is a band-aid on a bullet hole.

"It still hurts," Jarmon told the Houston Chronicle. "Nothing can replace her."

The family recently gathered at the intersection and released pink and white balloons, De'Maree's favorite color.

Police are not releasing the suspect's name at this time, telling reporters that detectives are still putting the case together.

"We want to make sure that we don't jeopardize the investigation," HOuston Chief Art Acevedo told the Chronicle. "We still have witnesses out there. Those witnesses, you know who you are. You need to step forward."

The grief-stricken mother is still focused on her baby girl, wondering what might have been.

"I wanted to see her teenage years," Thomas said. "I want to go and pick out prom dresses for my baby. I wanted to see her get married."