Quantasia Grant was an ambitious and adventurous 20-year-old with a compassionate heart and a contagious confidence. A native of Sarasota, Florida, the young Black woman was a talented, self-taught hair and makeup artist who had started her own business, Pocket Venus Co. She moved to Huntsville, Alabama, in 2021 for a change of scenery, telling her mother, “I want to see what the world has for me.”
Her family described her as being full of smiles and laughs, a person who gave the best hugs and whose presence could light up a room. Quantasia dreamed of becoming a model and actress and was planning an eventual move to Atlanta to pursue her goals.
On the night of January 7, 2023, Quantasia attended a 21st birthday party at the Legacy Events center in a Huntsville strip mall. She was there to network and build clientele for her business. The celebration turned into a scene of chaos when gunfire erupted between two groups. Quantasia, an innocent bystander, was shot and killed. Another 20-year-old woman, Kaitlyn Jenkins, also lost her life, and eleven other people were wounded in the mass shooting.
The Madison County Sheriff’s Office launched an investigation that led to the arrests of five individuals within a week of the shooting. Authorities took Ashton Elliot, 20, and DeMarcus Thompson, 19, into custody, along with three other suspects who were 16 years old at the time of the incident.
In March 2025, a grand jury indicted all five suspects. Elliot and Thompson were each indicted on two counts of murder and two counts of first-degree assault. The case later faced a significant complication when it was revealed that crucial evidence, including recorded witness interviews and the crime scene log, had been lost or could not be located by law enforcement.
Citing the missing evidence, attorneys for Ashton Elliot filed a motion in February 2026 to have the murder charges against him dismissed, arguing that the loss of evidence made a fair trial impossible. However, a judge denied the motion, ruling that the charges would stand. As of April 2026, the case against the suspects continues to proceed through the legal system as the families of Quantasia Grant and Kaitlyn Jenkins await justice.
