Monika Diamond was 34 when she was shot and killed while receiving medical care in an ambulance on March 18, 2020, in the parking lot of a Days Inn on E. Woodlawn Road in Charlotte, North Carolina. A prominent figure in the city’s LGBTQ and nightlife community, she founded Ncphyne Promotion Company LLC and served as co-CEO of the International Mother of the Year Pageantry System, and her biography describes her as a loving friend and a chosen mother to many people she created safe spaces for.

According to police, medics were treating Diamond for shortness of breath when a man identified as Prentice Bess, then 32, was turned away from entering the ambulance. Bess left briefly and returned with a gun, shooting Diamond several times inside the vehicle. Paramedics attempted resuscitation but she was pronounced dead at the scene; Bess was arrested there and charged with murder. He was interviewed by homicide detectives and remained in custody; at an April 2021 hearing his attorney requested a psychiatric evaluation and the case was awaiting trial.

Did anyone in Charlotte’s LGBTQ or nightlife community have contacts or information about Diamond’s movements that night or about witnesses at the Days Inn parking lot?