Father questions motive in pregnant teen's shooting death

ATLANTA — Alphonse Harrison says he met his only daughter at church late last month.

The 14-year-old fell asleep on his shoulder. At eight-months pregnant, Sonja “Star” Harrison was cordial with her dad who said it was hard to keep in touch with her as she constantly moved around or had a cellphone in another family member’s possession.

He said he didn’t know she was pregnant until five months into the pregnancy, largely thanks to rumors spreading between the Instagram accounts of friends’ children.

And he didn’t know Star had been shot dead on Monday night until a call from one of her half-sibling’s fathers, Harrison said.

"You believe whoever shot Star knew her?" asked Channel 2 investigative reporter Nicole Carr.

“It’s in their circle,” Harrison said, referring to his estranged wife. “Like I said, it was in their circle.”

Star was one of two young ladies shot and killed in the Pavilion Place Apartment Complex, between Monday evening and early Tuesday morning. The second, separate incident claimed the life of an unidentified 21-year-old woman.

Both remain death investigations, meaning theories of a possible suicide in one case, and an accidental gunshot in Star’s case just haven’t been confirmed.

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Atlanta police swarmed the complex earlier in the week, confirming the 14-year-old Harrison had been struck by a bullet coming from an apartment above her sister's unit.

Her mother, Sonja Harrison, told Channel 2 Action News that Star had been eating ice cream in the living room and babysitting nieces and nephews just ahead of the shooting.

During an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, a neighbor who lived above Star's sister said the gunfire came from unidentified young visitors to her apartment.

Sonja Harrison encouraged the shooter to “turn himself in,” and vowed not to be angry with him.

“You young people, you stop playing with these guns,” Sonja Harrison said Monday. “They took my baby’s life and my grandbaby’s life.”

Sonja Harrison also said Star attended Freedom Middle School and lived with her in Stone Mountain. But Alphonse Harrison and his sister Pebbles told Channel 2 Action News that they found out Star was no longer enrolled in school late last spring.

She was also living in the Cleveland Avenue apartments with her older sister, and no furniture, they said. It was an ongoing cycle of transient living that they’d previously reported to DFCS, the family said.

Pebbles wanted her niece to move in with her once she delivered the baby that she’d decided to keep, but says she received major pushback from the girl’s mother.

“Her mother went ballistic and told me ‘No,’ Pebbles Harrison said recalling what her sister-in-law told her. “No. I had to face being pregnant at school and Star is going to have to do the same thing.”

“She had the kids here and there and I don’t know nothing,” Alphonse Harrison said, referring to his estranged wife who retained control over their daughter’s affairs as he lives with his mother and a mental impairment.

On Monday, two details that Star offered her aunt about the baby’s father stood out. He was much older. He lived nearby.

“At one point she told me that he lived in an upstairs apartment,” Pebbles Harrison told Carr, noting she wasn’t sure if it was in the Cleveland Avenue apartments or another recent dwelling for the child.

The paternal Harrison side wants police to home in on the unidentified baby’s father, and his relationship with Pavilion Place residents.

“I believe that relationship is more than what’s being revealed and I also believe it may have something to do with whom she was pregnant by because that was being concealed from us,” Pebbles Harrison said.

She also wants people to know her niece wanted to be in school and have some stability through education and one day—the law or cosmetology career her aunt told her she could have. After all, Star recently watched Pebbles move on to pursue a degree at Georgia Southern University.

“I don’t want Star to be swept under the rug and just written off as some pregnant, 14-year-old black girl,” Pebbles Harrison said. “She was very sweet. She still watched the Disney Channel.She loved to sing. She was a child. Someone took advantage of a child.”

“I do believe some things have been fabricated. I believe some things are being covered up and I just pray to God that it’s thoroughly investigated,” she concluded.

Cox Media Group