Jerkera B. Battle, a 22-year-old Black woman from Allentown, Pennsylvania, was killed inside her apartment on the 700 block of West Turner Street in the early morning hours of July 22, 2025. Officers responded to a report of a woman shot and found Battle in the hallway with multiple gunshot wounds; she was pronounced dead at the scene and the Lehigh County coroner ruled the death a homicide, reporting a fatal gunshot wound to the head.

Battle was a mother to an infant son, Noah, about three months old, and a graduate of Liberty High School. Friends and family remembered her as joyful, compassionate, talkative, and generous; she loved animals and had trained her dog Hope. Her obituary named her parents as Jermaine Battle Sr. and the late Latoya Ellerby.

Police accused Battle’s ex-boyfriend, 27-year-old Adam Makowka of South Whitehall Township, of carrying out the shooting. Investigators say surveillance showed a man arriving before dawn, using the fire escape and entering through a roof access door; a witness inside the apartment identified Makowka as the shooter. Authorities reported he was armed with an AR-15 rifle and repeatedly shot Battle, then fired toward the witness until the weapon ran out of ammunition.

Does anyone have information about Jerkera Battle, her daily routines, or who might have known about a custody dispute?