Trackdown: Help find Tamaika White's killer
This week, Dallas police need help to track down the man who shot and killed a young mother.
Tamaika White had been in Dallas about a year before her murder on December 5, 2016. The 23-year-old was a passenger in a car when she was shot and killed by a person in another vehicle whom she had just left
Police say they need help because the driver of the car that White was in could not give them any information about the man who killed her.
Dallas Homicide Detective Esteban Montenegro keeps returning to the place where White met the man who police say killed her at the City Inn & Suites in Oak Cliff. What happened was caught on tape by two sets of cameras.
“He's a heavy-set male with a distinctive walk,” the detective said. “You see the suspect back into one of these spaces.”
Video shows the victim in another car with a friend at the edge of the parking lot. They both then entered the hotel’s courtyard from opposite sides and stop near a room.
“They have a brief talk,” Montenegro said. “They walk away.”
As they do, the man police are looking for walks right past the cameras.
“He's a Hispanic male, heavy set,” the detective said. “During that time, it was cold. So he's got a heavy jacket. He looks like he's got a beard.”
Both are seen on tape walking back to the parking area, and then White walks to the man’s car. Police say it’s a Toyota Matrix.
“They stay there for a couple of minutes. Then, she exits the suspect’s vehicle in a hurry,” Montenegro said. “She got back into the car that she was in. She’s the right front passenger. They drive off. That’s when the suspect follows them.”
Police say the Toyota Matrix with a sunroof was driven by the suspect. Both vehicles head from the motel and out onto South Marsalis, where a second surveillance camera on a home catches the cars near the intersection of Winters and 1300 Marsalis.
“This is where the suspect caught up to the witness and the complainant,” Montenegro said. “And this is where the shots were fired.”
The young mother died in the car she was riding in.
“I hope they find them to get them and bring closure to this situation ‘cause it’s been really devastating for us,” said Bernice Smith, White’s grandmother.
Police say it’s disappointing that they have not been able to put the suspect’s face and the car together.
“If anybody knows about this, please call us,” Montenegro pleaded.
Police say the person driving the car White was killed in was so freaked out by the shooting that he drove several miles before stopping to call 911 with White dying from her wounds.
There is reward money in the case. Anyone with information is urged to call Detective Montenegro at (214) 671-3624.
For several of the cold cases, police are hanging their hopes for an arrest on the public's eyes and surveillance video. They are now turning to FOX 4's Shaun Rabb to help ‘Trackdown' the criminals.
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