How a 10-year-old girl played dead while gunman killed her parents and little sister

A woman is hailing her 10-year-old granddaughter as a hero after she said the juvenile played dead while a masked gunman fatally shot her parents as well as her six-year-old sister in their Houston apartment.

According to ABC13, the masked suspect made his way into the victims’ apartment on Wednesday night and opened fire on the little girl’s family. The minor’s parents Donyavia Lagway, 29, and 35-year-old Gregory Carhee, were fatally shot in the head. Her six-year-old sister, identified as Harmony Carhee, also met the same fate.

The deceased parents’ one-year-old son was also in the apartment at the time of the shooting but he was uninjured though his 10-year-old sister who also survived was shot in the arm. “I still can’t believe it,” Manda Lagway, the grandmother of the siblings, said.

Narrating the incident, Lagway said she received a FaceTime call from her 10-year-old granddaughter who told her her parents had been shot. “She’s like, ‘Granny, my mom got shot. My dad got shot’ and I’m like, ‘What happened?’,” Lagway recalled.

The 10-year-old survivor told police the masked shooter gained access to their apartment after he knocked. And when the door was opened, the suspect grabbed her little brother’s hair and threw him away before opening fire. The girl added that she played dead until the killer left. She then went for her brother before locking the door.

“I just want everybody to know my baby, she’s a hero. My baby is a hero,” Lagway told the news outlet.

Donyavia’s cousin, Ronette Terrell, also told KHOU 11 the victims did not deserve to die the way they did. “Why? That’s what I don’t understand,” Terrell said. “When I got the phone call I was just in disbelief and then she told me that they had both passed and I was saying that couldn’t be true.”

Terrell added that the 10-year-old’s sharp reactions during and after the shooting saved her as well as her little brother. “She waited until he left and pretended that she was dead and then when he left she locked the door, grabbed her little brother, called her grandmother,” Terrell said.

Meanwhile, a 28-year-old man was arrested Thursday in connection with the shootings, ABC13 reported. The suspect, identified as Xavier Davis, has since been charged with three counts of capital murder for the killings. He also faces an additional aggravated assault with a deadly weapon charge in the shooting of the 10-year-old survivor. His bond was set at $1,040,000.

“This was a very, very tragic scene,” Houston Police Department Assistant Chief Patricia Cantu told KHOU 11. “We’re sending out prayers to the family. This was not only a difficult scene for us but for the family as well.”