La Tonya Denise Battle, a 31-year-old woman from Baltimore, was killed in the predawn hours of Thursday, August 6, 2015, as violence unfolded across East Baltimore’s Oldtown area. Police were first called at about 4:30 a.m. to the 700 block of North Eden Street, where they found a man—later identified as Tranell Dansbury—suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. He was rushed to a hospital, but he did not survive.
Not long afterward, officers located Battle in the area of East Monument Street and Aisquith Street—described in reporting as the 1200 block of Monument Street—where she had been shot in the head. She was pronounced dead at the scene, on a street corner that, by daylight, would have looked ordinary: rowhouses, sidewalks, a neighborhood waking up, and then the stark stillness of a taped-off perimeter and unanswered questions.
In the immediate aftermath, investigators had little they could share publicly. Police said there was no suspect description available and no known motive released at the time, leaving the case suspended in that hard space between what detectives know, what witnesses may have seen, and what the public can confirm. Both victims were identified the next day, but the reporting did not describe any arrests or name any suspect connected to Battle’s killing.
As the trail cooled, the investigation leaned on the community’s memory and willingness to talk. Authorities urged anyone with information to contact Metro Crime Stoppers at 1-866-7LOCKUP, hoping that a fragment—an argument overheard, a car noticed idling too long, a flash of movement in the dark—might be enough to put shape to what, at least in the public record from that period, remained a case without a publicly identified perpetrator.
