KANSAS CITY, Mo. — One week since the killing of Myana Henderson at a Kansas City, Missouri, convenience store parking lot, Henderson's mother, Dawn Kopecky, says she is still unable to process her loss.
"I'm shopping for my baby to be in a casket. It's so hard,” Kopecky said. "I shouldn’t be doing this. She just turned 21 on the fifth, and a week later she dies. I should be having a party for my baby. Instead, I'm burying her.”
The 21-year-old was shot and killed the morning of Aug. 13 at the BP gas station on 1900 Independence Avenue.
"I pulled up on the scene right after it happened. I didn’t get to see her. I’m standing there, I'm seeing the scene, it just isn’t making any sense,” Kopecky said. "To have somebody you love just ripped out of your life for nothing. She did nothing. ... Who is out hunting people for no reason on a Saturday morning?”
Family and friends gathered Saturday at Sunnyside Park in Waldo for a balloon release to honor Henderson's life.
Wearing red shirts with Henderson's photo on the front, attendees started the event holding onto one another during a prayer led by Henderson's great aunt Carla Minor.
“We ask you at this time, dear Lord, that you will have mercy on us — have mercy on our families, on our children, our loved ones, our friends,” Minor said.
Minor says she will remember Henderson for her kind heart.
And aunt Nychole Hunter says she will miss hearing Henderson's sweet, talented singing voice.
As the family learns to live with the loss of their loved one, they seek justice.
"I never ever thought my baby would be on a shirt. She didn’t do anything to anybody, she loved everybody she came across, “ Kopecky said. "She was a beautiful, beautiful soul, and I just pray that my baby rests in peace and we get justice for her.”
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