Shaniqua Terell Irby, a 24-year-old Black female, was killed on February 7, 2020, in Memphis, Tennessee.
Late that Friday night, deputies with the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office were sent to Clinchport Circle, off Cedar Bluff Drive, where they found a person who had been shot to death. The scene was treated as a homicide from the start, and the neighborhood was left with the sudden shock of violence that had come and gone in the dark.
Within days, authorities identified the victim as Irby, saying she was found inside a vehicle on Clinchport Circle near Robertson Road. Investigators said they had not established a motive, and they did not have suspect information available at that time, turning instead to the public for help and urging anyone with information to contact Crime Stoppers.
Away from the police tape and flashing lights, Irby’s family remembered her as someone taken “tragically and suddenly.” Born December 9, 1995, she was raised in Memphis, and her obituary named her parents as Kathesia Centrell Mosley and Rodney Terrell Irby—details that grounded the headlines in a real life and a real family suddenly forced into grief.
