By Eileen Buckley
Buffalo, NY – Buffalo police are trying to figure out why a three-year old girl and her grandmother were shot to death in their Bissell Avenue home Tuesday. The child's father has been charged.
This was not a stranger, a home invasion or anything like that. All the people involved were acquaintances, said Buffalo Homicide Captain Mark Morgan, who spoke to reporters at police headquarters late Tuesday afternoon. Morgan says 3-year-old Brianna Miller was shot in her sleep.
Initially investigators believed a second young girl was also murdered. But it was later determined that it was actually the body of the child's 54-year old grandmother, Lois Miller. She was shot to death along with Brianna.
"Lois Miller's body was in such a position that she was face down and in a corner. She had very child-like features. She was barely five feet tall and weighed 100 pounds," Morgan explained. "The attire that she was wearing would almost be something that a teenager would wear as bed clothes."
Willie Jackson, 30, the child's father, was arrested and charged. He faces two-counts of intentional murder and one-count of attempted murder.
The girl's pregnant mother, Crystal Miller, 21, was wounded and is in stable condition at the Erie County Medical Center. Police say her baby will be okay. Morgan said Miller led police to Jackson.
"He was very cooperative," Morgan said. "He came with the officers."
Morgan says the shooting spree started when Artis Gavin, 60, a friend of the grandmother, was shot in his car prior to the Bissell Avenue murders. He drove himself to the hospital and is recovering.
But investigators are still searching for a motive. And as of late Tuesday afternoon, police were trying to recover the handgun used in the shootings.