‘I Could’ve Saved You’: Relative Recalls Last Conversation With St. Paul Shooting Victim

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ST. PAUL, Minn. (WCCO) — St. Paul police have arrested a man believed to have killed three people over the weekend, two of which were children.

The shooting happened on the 700 block of Jessie Street in the city’s East Side.

The suspect is a 26-year-old man and he was arrested Sunday night in St Paul.

WCCO’s Christiane Cordero spoke with the cousin and aunt of the victims.

The victims, the Ramsey County Medical Examiner’s Office has confirmed, are 30-year-old D’Zondria Wallace, and her children, 14-year-old La’Porsha and 11-year-old Ja’Corbie.

D’Zondria moved to the Twin Cities from Mississippi about a year ago, to try and create a better life. Her life and those of her children were cut short, tragically and suddenly, Saturday afternoon.

St. Paul Police Chief Todd Axtell said this shooting caused unthinkable pain on the victims, their loved ones and the entire city.

Unthinkable for Moesha Whitehall, D’Zondria’s cousin. She spoke with her niece La’Porsha, who sometimes went by Suga, almost right before the shooting.

“Suga had messaged me 10 minutes before all of this even transpired. Before her life was taken. So I was in disbelief because I also had talked to Tweedy at 7:30 on Saturday,” Whitehall said. “I was like, no. Like I just talked to them, you can’t tell me that my cousins are gone because I just talked to them. I took it tough because my last words with her was, like, she says, ‘What are you doing?’ and I’m thinking, I could’ve saved you.”

Whitehall said she had no reason to believe their lives were in danger.

Someone did.

An hour before the victims were discovered, St Paul police checked in on D’Zondria after receiving a call from a family member in Tennessee worried about the family. According to officers, D’Zondria said she was OK and to tell the person who called that she was OK.

Whitehall wants people to remember this family as one that was full of light and promise. She set up a GoFundMe page to help pay for funeral expenses.