Da’Mya Cummerlander was an 18-year-old Black woman from Columbus, Ohio. A 2023 graduate of New Albany High School who finished a year early, she was exploring nursing and military careers and had just learned she was pregnant when she was killed. Her family remembered her as vibrant, caring, and full of life.

In the early hours of Sunday, June 2, 2024, Da’Mya was at a graduation party on the 2600 block of Woodsedge Road in northeast Columbus. Just after 12:30 a.m. a gunshot was fired and she was struck. Responding officers found her unresponsive and medics pronounced her dead at 12:44 a.m.

The next day 20-year-old Kenneth Hairston turned himself in at police headquarters with an attorney and was arrested on charges of involuntary manslaughter and having weapons under disability. Court documents say Hairston told detectives the gun discharged after someone smacked his hand as he tried to return a pistol, and that he and others left before police arrived. A judge set bond at $500,000. The community’s grief intensified when two more people were shot and killed the night after the shooting at a candlelight vigil held in Da’Mya’s memory at Krumm Park.

If anyone at the party or who attended the vigil has information that hasn’t been shared with investigators, please come forward.