In the early morning hours of October 23, 2022, the life of 33-year-old Black / African American female Jasmine Burrell was tragically cut short in the Mattapan neighborhood of Boston. Just before 5 a.m. on Fairlawn Avenue, as she was walking to her car in front of her apartment, she was shot. Boston police officers responded to a report of a person shot and found Ms. Burrell at the scene.
Emergency medical services pronounced her dead at the location.
The death of Jasmine Burrell, a mother, was made all the more heartbreaking by the presence of her 12-year-old son, who reportedly witnessed the shooting. Her death was one of three fatal shootings that occurred in Boston over that same weekend, prompting community leaders to express their concerns about gun violence in the city. Friends and family remembered Ms. Burrell as a young, intelligent, and responsible woman who was deeply in love with her child. In the days that followed, a memorial grew at the Soma Apartments, and a vigil was held where dozens gathered in the rain to mourn her loss, releasing balloons in her memory.
The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner determined that Jasmine Burrell's manner of death was a homicide. The Boston Police Department opened an investigation into her murder, and at the time, Suffolk County District Attorney Kevin Hayden described the situation as "terribly sad" and assured the public that investigators were working diligently to gather information. Despite these efforts and public pleas for information, no arrests have been made in connection with her killing. The case remains an unsolved homicide, leaving a family and a community searching for answers and justice for a life taken too soon.
