In the late hours of a Sunday evening in December 2017, the life of 33-year-old Tamika Trimble, an African-American mother of seven, was tragically cut short in a hail of gunfire on Terry Mill Road in DeKalb County, Georgia. Trimble was behind the wheel of her car, with her one-year-old daughter secured in the backseat, when at least two assailants opened fire.
The attack was relentless, with evidence suggesting the shooters pursued her, firing from two separate locations.
Neighbors were startled by the sound of multiple gunshots, with one recalling hearing as many as seven or eight rounds. Rushing to the scene, they found Trimble mortally wounded in her vehicle. Miraculously, her young daughter was unharmed, a fact that authorities described as astonishing given that the car was struck from multiple angles. Investigators recovered an AR-15 and a handgun at the scene. In the immediate aftermath, Trimble's family was left reeling, with her mother, Shelbra Trimble, making public pleas for the perpetrator, who she had heard was a 17-year-old, to surrender to the authorities. Relatives voiced their belief that the shooting may have been a case of mistaken identity, as Trimble was driving an unfamiliar car on the day of the incident. The shooting occurred just one day before her son Kenneth's tenth birthday.
Despite the initial investigation and the family's desperate search for answers, no arrests were ever made in connection with Tamika Trimble's murder. The case remained unsolved, a lingering tragedy for her seven children and extended family. The profound and lasting impact of this unsolved crime was underscored in a devastating turn of events seven years later. In January 2025, Trimble's son, Kenneth Collier Jr., who had become an advocate against gun violence after his mother's death, was himself shot and killed at the age of 17. His father, Kenneth Collier Sr., who had the heartbreaking task of informing his son of his mother's death on his tenth birthday, once again found himself mourning a life lost to gun violence. While an arrest was made in his son's case, the killer or killers of Tamika Trimble remain at large.
