TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — While the suspect charged with manslaughter in the death of 38-year-old Tonika Turner turned himself in this week, her family is still hurting and heartbroken.
“This is such a heavy loss,” said Queen Turner, one of Tonika’s 10 siblings.
Queen told News Channel 8 she has always looked up to her big sister.
“I know she’s still here spiritually,” she said, “but I need that shell. I need that physical aspect here.”
Tonika Turner’s sisters remember her as a talented performer.
“She’s always rapping, she’s always singing,” her youngest sister DeYanira B. said. “She walk up to you and she thinks she’s Mary J. Blige.”
But they say her most important role was being the mother to her three children.
“They want their mom to be there, you see what I’m saying, and I know I’m their aunt and I love them,” DeYanira said, “there’s nothing like their mom.”
Before 1 a.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 21, Hillsborough County deputies responded to a home north of University Mall in the 1200 block of East 139th Street.
They found Tonika suffering from a gunshot to her upper body.
Court documents obtained by News Channel 8 reveal new details about what exactly happened that night.
“The evidence showed that a single shot was fired from the ‘music studio/hangout room’ and traveled west through a wall into the adjacent victim’s room where it struck the victim in the back as she was standing in her bathroom,” the detective wrote in the Criminal Report Affidavit for the suspect, 27-year-old Keonte Henley.
“My sister was in the room by herself and for someone to be in another room and can cause danger to her,” DeYanira said, “her just standing by her mirror for her to be shot and for them to run out and leave my sister.”
The detective also wrote several people at the home, including the accused shooter, “left the residence approximately 7 minutes prior to 911 being called.”
“Either she passed on the way to the hospital or at the hospital,” Queen Turner said. “There still was a chance.”
Eleven days after deputies identified their suspect, Henley turned himself in this past Tuesday. He has already bonded out of jail after his first court appearance for manslaughter with a weapon and felon in possession of a firearm charges.
“And I want justice for my sister and I’m very upset that you get to bond out,” DeYanira said. “I’m very upset. I don’t want you free because I’m not free.”
The focus now for Tonika’s family is to continue loving and supporting her three children.
“That’s all she has left, her kids, and I want to make sure that even the sky ain’t the limit for them,” Queen said.
While the legal process is just beginning in this manslaughter cause, DeYanira said she wants prosecutors to push for the maximum sentence.
News Channel 8 spoke by phone with Henley’s defense attorney, Marc Joseph.
Joseph said he is questioning the credibility of the witness who identified Henley as the shooter.
He also said another man in the music studio room was waving the gun around and when his client tried to get the gun out of his hands, the fatal shot was fired.
