Ta’Tyana Hamilton was a 26-year-old Toledo woman remembered by friends as funny and down to earth. She graduated from Calvin M. Woodward High School. Her life ended during a family graduation party on the afternoon of May 29, 2019, at a home on the corner of Chesnut and Dexter Street in north Toledo.

Just before 3 p.m. a custody dispute at the party escalated into a fight and gunfire. Three people were struck by bullets. Ta’Tyana was taken to a hospital and died of her injuries; a 17-year-old girl and a man suffered non-life-threatening wounds. Police initially arrested 19-year-old Darius Stenson and charged him with murder, but investigators later identified Ta’Tyana’s 17-year-old cousin, Devon Hands Jr., as the person who accidentally shot her during the altercation.

Hands’ case was sent to adult court because of his age and the firearm. In March 2021 he pleaded to involuntary manslaughter and prosecutors dismissed the firearm specifications so the matter could return to juvenile court. In April 2021 a Common Pleas judge imposed an indefinite adult term of four to six years but stayed that sentence pending juvenile court proceedings; as of June 2021 Hands was awaiting final juvenile sentencing.

Did anyone at the party know Ta’Tyana or notice anything unusual that afternoon?