On the night of July 13, 2016, Ebony Taylor, a 25-year-old African-American woman and young mother, was fatally shot while sitting on a porch in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. What should have been an ordinary summer evening ended in tragedy when gunfire erupted near the intersection of North 33rd and West Hadley streets. At approximately 11:15 p.m., Milwaukee police responded to reports of a shooting involving two victims.
Taylor suffered fatal gunshot wounds and was pronounced dead at the scene, while another woman was seriously injured.
The second victim was transported to a hospital for treatment of a serious gunshot wound. Authorities did not immediately release detailed information about what led to the shooting, whether the victims had been deliberately targeted, or whether an argument or confrontation had preceded the violence. Investigators began working to establish the circumstances surrounding the attack and identify whoever was responsible. The Milwaukee Police Department reported that it was searching for a person of interest, although that individual's identity was not publicly disclosed in the initial coverage.
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Taylor's killing occurred during an especially violent night in Milwaukee. Approximately 15 minutes earlier, police had responded to another fatal shooting near North 28th and West Clarke streets, where Rebecca Wood was killed. Authorities described the shootings as separate, unrelated incidents. By the following morning, police had no one in custody in connection with either homicide. The proximity in time of the two killings underscored the violence that had claimed multiple lives in the city that evening.
For Taylor's family, the tragedy extended far beyond the shooting scene. She left behind her young son, Giovoni, who was only four years old when his mother was killed. Her foster mother, Kimberly Zulkowski, became determined to obtain justice for Taylor and answers for the child who was struggling to understand his mother's absence. As the months passed without an arrest, Zulkowski's grief increasingly turned into frustration over the lack of accountability.
On November 3, 2016, nearly four months after the killing, Zulkowski publicly announced that she was offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or people responsible. She explained that she was willing to contribute everything she could to help solve the murder. Her decision reflected both the devastating loss of her foster daughter and her determination to ensure that Giovoni would someday know what happened to his mother.
During an interview with FOX6 Milwaukee, Zulkowski described the emotional toll the killing had taken on the family. Giovoni continued asking to see photographs of his mother and even slept with her obituary. He had started school without Taylor and attended his first parent-teacher conferences without her. With the holidays approaching and his birthday drawing closer, Zulkowski spoke about the many family milestones Taylor would never experience with her son. She hoped the substantial reward would encourage someone with information about the shooting to come forward.
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The reward was specifically intended to produce information that would lead not merely to identifying a possible suspect, but to an arrest and conviction. Despite the early announcement that investigators were searching for a person of interest, publicly available reporting did not identify that individual or establish a motive for the shooting. No subsequent arrest, criminal charges, trial, or conviction connected to Taylor's murder could be verified through the available reports.
Taylor's death left her family searching for answers and a young child growing up without his mother. Her foster mother's determination to offer such a substantial reward demonstrated how deeply the killing affected those closest to her. What happened on that July evening remained a painful unanswered question, with the identity of the person responsible unresolved in the publicly available information.
