In the hours after 5-year-old Zah’Layah Walter was shot and killed while riding in her mother’s car, Monica Hicks was grieving her daughter while strangers on social media questioned whether she had somehow caused the shooting.
They blamed her, saying she provoked road rage. Now, court records are providing a different picture.
Jeremy Porter, 47, is charged with capital murder in Zah’Layah’s death and remains in custody without bond. According to court records, Porter told investigators he fired five shots toward Hicks’ vehicle because he believed someone in the car had fired at him and was driving erratically. Hicks, who was driving with her children, has maintained there was no confrontation.
At a vigil for her daughter, Hicks addressed those who doubted her.
“For people to say that I had something to do with my baby being dead, what am I going to get out of lying?” she said. “I did not know him. I did not say anything to him.”
Hicks said the moments before the Sept. 19 shooting on Grant Road near Jones Road were strikingly ordinary. There was no argument. She did not even have the radio playing. Her children were talking.
“My baby said, ‘Can I have a Hot Pocket when I get home?’” Hicks recalled.
It would become one of the last conversations she had with her daughter. Hicks said she didn’t initially recognize the sounds as gunfire. She heard what sounded like a rush of wind before the back window shattered.
“I did not know my baby was hit,” she said.
Investigators say Zah’Layah was struck in the head. Two other children suffered injuries from shattered glass. Hicks made it to her nearby apartment before realizing her youngest daughter was unresponsive. Zah’Layah was transported by helicopter to a hospital, where she died.
Porter was arrested the next day after investigators used automated license plate readers and Flock cameras to help locate him. Court records say he admitted firing at the family’s vehicle, saying a male driver had shot at him first.
For Hicks, those details matter because of the narrative that formed almost immediately after the shooting.
“It was cool when everybody was saying, ‘Oh, the mom, the mom, the mom,’” she said. “Now that y’all know the real story, y’all want to back out. Y’all can stand on that, too. But I know what happened.”
She said Porter could see inside her vehicle and should have been able to see her children.
“You seen me. You seen my kids. And you chose to do what you did,” she said.
But underneath the anger is a mother struggling with a loss she still cannot fully comprehend.
“Nobody will understand unless you’ve actually been in my shoes,” Hicks said. “I wouldn’t wish this pain on anybody.”
Hicks said she believes her faith may eventually lead her to forgiveness. But not yet.
“One day I’m going to forgive him,” she said. “But I’m not going to lie to nobody. Right now, there’s no forgiveness.”
For now, she wants accountability for the little girl who was simply riding home with her family.
“You took my baby’s life for nothing,” Hicks said. “My baby’s never coming back.”
