A 13-year-old Philadelphia girl who had left her family home for six months has been shot in the mouth and killed inside an apartment last April, police said.
On Friday, investigators identified the slain teen as missing Alezuana Carter and arrested 25-year-old Luis Rodriguez over her murder.
Rodriguez has repeatedly confessed to the shooting, according to an anonymous witness, and even bragged about “shooting the teen in the neck.”
Police on April 18, 2021, responded to an Overington Street apartment at around 10:58 p.m. to find a dying Carter with a gunshot wound to the mouth.
She was taken to a local hospital where she passed away shortly later. Her family said that she ran away from home in October.
“There’s nothing you can do as a parent to prepare you for something like this,” the victim’s grandfather William Orr said.
“We all live down South Philly and southwest, so I have no idea how she managed to find her way down to this neighborhood.”
He added that the family was not notified of Carter’s death until two weeks after the slaying.
Rodriguez is being held without bond on murder charges.
