On the night of February 5, 2023, Phoenix police were called to Steele Indian School Park, near Central Avenue and Indian School Road, after reports of an injured person in a vehicle. Responding officers found Karissa Danyelle Hamilton, a 29-year-old female White/Caucasian resident of Phoenix, Arizona, in the driver's seat of a gray Nissan Altima parked in the southeast lot of the park with the engine still running, suffering from at least one gunshot wound.
She was pronounced dead at the scene by Phoenix Fire Department personnel, and homicide detectives took over the investigation into what authorities immediately treated as a fatal shooting.
Karissa had deep ties to Arizona. Born in Yuma in April 1993, she was described by relatives as the first granddaughter and first niece in her family, someone who was cherished and doted on for the first decade of her life. As an adult she pursued higher education and sports media, earning two bachelor's degrees — one from Northern Arizona University and another from Arizona State University — and setting her sights on a career in sports journalism, with ambitions of working on sidelines and in locker rooms covering games. Family, friends, and online memorials consistently remember her as kind, humble, funny, and devoted to those around her, particularly to her young son.
In August 2022, Karissa relocated from Yuma to Phoenix in hopes of creating better opportunities for her child and building her media career, staying with extended family while she worked and planned her future. The weekend of her death, she drove back to Yuma on Saturday, February 4, to attend a relative's baby shower, then left around midday on Sunday, February 5, to return to the Phoenix area. When she failed to check in after arriving, relatives became worried; they spent hours that night driving around the city, calling hospitals and places she frequented, trying to locate her before eventually learning from police that she had been found shot inside her car at the park.
Investigators have released only limited information about what happened between the time Karissa left Yuma and the moment she was discovered in the parking lot. Police and Silent Witness bulletins state that her gray Nissan Altima was located on the southeast side of Steele Indian School Park, engine running, with Karissa deceased inside. A Phoenix Police media advisory notes that detectives are still working to determine what led up to the shooting and have not disclosed any specific sequence of events, potential motive, or timeline beyond the approximate 10–11 p.m. window when officers were called and arrived at the scene.
As of the most recent public updates, no arrests have been made in connection with Karissa's killing, and investigators have not named or described any suspect; Silent Witness lists the suspect status in the case simply as “unknown.” Nine months after the shooting, local coverage described the investigation as having gone cold, with police saying they had few leads and the family pleading with the community for information. To encourage tips, a reward totaling $10,000 has been offered — $2,000 from the nonprofit Silent Witness and $8,000 contributed by Karissa's relatives — for information leading to an arrest in the case. Her loved ones continue to speak publicly, hold press events, and maintain online memorials, emphasizing her life as a devoted mother and driven aspiring sports journalist while calling for anyone with even a small piece of information to come forward so that the person responsible for her death can be identified and brought to justice.
