Missouri: Woman on a quest for daughter's killer

By Denise Hollinshed St. Louis Post-Dispatch HILLSDALE, Mo. (AP) -- Sharon Webb parked her car on the spot on a street in Hillsdale where her daughter was fatally shot 11 years ago and got to work. She and another daughter posted fliers around the area where Cara' J. Davenport was gunned down on March 26, 2000. More than a decade after her daughter was shot while sitting in a car in the 6100 block of Greer Avenue, Webb still hasn't given up hope that the killers will be found. "I just cannot see her death end in vain and she be forgotten," Webb said as her oldest daughter, Stacey Webb, walked up and down Kienlen Avenue stapling fliers to poles. "There's not a day that goes by that I don't cry." Sharon Webb is seeking any information that might help police jail her daughter's killers. "Help get these criminals off the street," the flier says. "Please ... do the right thing. So far, no one has done the right thing, despite a $10,000 reward offered for a time. Davenport was sitting in a car parked outside an apartment complex on Greer about 7:30 p.m. on that Sunday in 2000. Two men approached on foot and began firing into the car, police have said. Davenport was killed. Two men in the car were wounded; neither provided much information to police after the shooting, and both have since been murdered themselves. Another woman in the car was unhurt. She hired a lawyer and refused to take a polygraph after the shooting. Police identified a suspect in Davenport's murder but haven't gotten warrants against anyone, according to Rick Eckhard, spokesman with the St. Louis County Police Department, which is investigating the case. He said police haven't gotten any new information for some time, but they are always hoping that someone will step forward. Anyone with information is asked to call CrimeStoppers at 1-866-371-8477. "As far as the investigation, it is continuing," Eckhard said. Posting the fliers has become an annual ritual for Sharon Webb in the days before the anniversary of the shooting, when she and other family members hold a vigil at the site of the shooting. Webb, who is retired from AT&T, said it feels like the shooting just happened. People tell her she should be done grieving, that her daughter wouldn't want her to be sad, she said. "Like I tell them, I think I know my daughter better than you do," she said. "I think she would have wanted me to find her killer." Webb said she knows the trail has gone cold, but she holds out hope that someone with information about the shooting will speak up. "I know that people over there knew something and wouldn't come forward, and that hurts," Webb said. "If it was your daughter, son, mother or father, you would want someone to come forward. I have a problem with that. To go this long and nobody to come forward? She didn't deserve that." Published: Wed, Apr 6, 2011