JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – It has been a very emotional week for the friends and family of the two women who were shot and killed early Sunday morning.
Sharnice Wilson, 23, and her 2-year old daughter, Ta-niyah Brooks, were spending the night with her godmother, Marquisha Phillips, when shots were fired into the home on Chestnut Drive.
The little girl managed to survive with only minor injuries, but both Wilson and Phillips were killed.
Thursday night a vigil was held to help family and friends grieve their deaths.
Prayer won't bring the women back, but the family said that it continues to help them move forward.
"I know that she was saved, and I know that she is in heaven. So we're rejoicing, because she's rejoicing," Ursula Johnson, the mother of Sharnice Wilson, said.
Lavisha Carroll, the sister of Sharnice Wilson, said that she remembers her sister as an incredibly happy and outgoing person.
"Sharnice will always be remembered as a hilarious person. If anybody ask me, that's always the one word that I use, hilarious, because she's just so outgoing, so caring and so helpful," Carroll said.
The son of Marquisha Phillips also spoke in his mother's honor, telling the crowd that had gathered that Phillips was a mother to everyone, not just him and that she didn't deserve this.
Balloons were released at the vigil to demonstrate that Phillips and Wilson had risen to a better place, a place where Johnson hopes to see her daughter again one day.
"The violence needs to stop. It starts at home. The training, the bringing up in church. The love of God, living by the Bible, it starts at home," Johnson said.