Serenity Sandra Renee Burton was an 18-year-old woman from Oklahoma City whose life was cut short in the early morning hours of November 22, 2025, when she was shot inside the Moore, Oklahoma apartment where she had recently moved in with her boyfriend and a roommate. Moore police responded around 4 a.m. to reports of gunfire at an apartment complex on South Eastern Avenue near Main Street; officers found Burton fatally wounded and a male victim suffering from a gunshot injury who was rushed to
the hospital and survived. Her killing marked the beginning of a violent, hours-long crime spree that would stretch across the Oklahoma City metro area and leave multiple people dead before the suspect was stopped by police later that day.
Online memorials and obituary records describe Serenity as a high-school senior born on November 16, 2007, in Great Falls, Montana, to Derek Burton and Desiree Boulanger, and note that she was “of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma” at the time of her death, even though the shooting itself happened in Moore. She was enrolled in Epic Charter School and working toward graduating in May, and her family say she had just started a new job days before she was killed. Loved ones remember her as ambitious and motivated, with plans to become a pediatric nurse, and as someone who was deeply caring, quick to forgive, and generous to the people around her. Her obituary and local coverage emphasize how much she was loved within her family circle, including her father, stepmother, siblings, and grandparents, and how devastating it was to lose her so soon after her eighteenth birthday.
According to police and subsequent news reports, Serenity had only recently moved into the Moore apartment with her boyfriend and 34-year-old roommate Deante Hawthorne. In the early morning of November 22, investigators say Hawthorne opened fire on the couple inside the home at Lyons Estates, killing Burton and wounding her boyfriend before fleeing in a stolen vehicle. After leaving the apartment complex, the suspect is believed to have carried out a string of carjackings and additional crimes that extended into Oklahoma City. A second man at another Moore apartment complex later died after what authorities described as a medical episode following the theft of his vehicle, and around midday, Hawthorne allegedly carjacked another driver at gunpoint near Northwest 11th Street and May Avenue in Oklahoma City. Not long afterward, police say he shot and killed 44-year-old Lenox Richardson in the 2100 block of Northeast 26th Street, further escalating the multi-jurisdiction crime spree.
Oklahoma City police ultimately spotted Hawthorne driving near Southeast 44th Street and Interstate 35, prompting a high-speed pursuit that ended on Interstate 240 at Eastern Avenue. There, officers reported that he crashed, tried to carjack yet another person at gunpoint, and was struck by passing vehicles before confronting law enforcement; an Oklahoma City police officer then shot him during the confrontation. Hawthorne was taken to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Because the only identified suspect in Serenity’s killing died as a result of that police shooting, there have been no arrests in her case; instead, Moore police and Oklahoma City police are treating her death as part of the broader homicide and officer-involved shooting investigations tied to the November 22 crime spree. While detectives continue to work on piecing together the exact motive and full sequence of events, Serenity’s family have focused on raising funds for her funeral through an online campaign and speaking publicly about their grief, describing the shock of learning she had been shot only hours after she had excitedly told them about her new job and plans for the future.
