Florida mother shot, killed while out buying food for young daughters, family says

By Marlei Martinez

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    ORANGE COUNTY, Florida (WESH) — On Tuesday, Kevin Moore gripped his wedding ring. Just six months ago, he tied the knot with the love of his life. Now, he has to say goodbye.

“She was everything to us. Everything to me,” Moore said.

Moore’s wife and the mother of their two young girls, Nekaybaw Collier, was shot and killed in Orlando last Thursday. She was found in a crashed SUV.

“She has given me life. Gave me strength that I never thought I had,” he said.

Last Thursday night, Collier came home from work. Her husband said it was around 6 p.m. when she said she was going to go to the store to grab some food for dinner. She left her 4-year-old and 8-year-old daughters at home with their dad while she went to the 7-Eleven on Hiawassee Road.

“I gave her a hug. I gave her a kiss. She said, ‘I’ll be right back. I’m going to the store,’” Moore said.

Collier never came home.

“I had a bad feeling that something wasn’t right,” Deshema McCoy, Collier’s mother, said.

She said both she and Moore kept trying to call her after too much time passed. After about 45 minutes, Moore said he took their girls and went out to look for her.

It was less than a mile from their house that he saw their wrecked SUV. Deputies found Collier inside and discovered she had been shot.

“This is not, ‘oh, this is just a shooting in Pine Hills,’” Moore said. “This is a mother. This is a wife. A daughter. A granddaughter. A sister. She was all these things and even while in that moment, she was still trying to be those things and come back to us.”

Later Thursday night, Moore discovered that his wife left him a voicemail during her final moments while he was working from home.

“I heard her struggle for her life. In the last 30 seconds of that voicemail, I heard the police officers bang on the door,” he said. “And I heard that they recognized she was shot and they rushed her to the hospital. And the voicemail was over.”

Collier was 27.

“I can’t put into words what she was to me,” Moore said.

Collier’s family said they will always remember her for being smart, hard-working, supportive, faithful, caring and kind.

“She was the best daughter in the world,” McCoy said. “We did everything together. She wasn’t just my daughter. She was my best friend.”

McCoy said not only did she lose a daughter, but her granddaughters lost their mother.

“She read with them and she taught them so many things. They’re so well-advanced. My 8-year-old granddaughter reads on a sixth-grade level. She skipped a grade. She’s in fourth grade. And that’s mainly because of her mother. She spends so much time. Education was very important to her,” McCoy said.

Collier was a business analyst in data analytics. Her mother said she wanted to help build other women up as she built her own career.

“She was always about girl power and just creating more space for women and African-American women especially,” she said.

Now, McCoy is asking people who saw or know something to come forward.

“Please, if anybody has seen anything, or if they know anything, or if they have cameras somewhere that they would like to release to the police,” she said. “Please call the police and report it because she did not deserve this.”

McCoy said their world has been turned upside down.

“It is so unfair that somebody is out there walking the streets and my daughter is dead,” she said. “Nobody saw anything and there’s no cameras. We need more cameras in the inner cities. Powers Drive is a big street and it’s very busy. They should have more cameras on that street. Somebody should have seen something or we should have cameras to tell us and show us who did this to my daughter.”

As Collier’s family pleads for information, they are sharing why they loved her so much.

“I just want her to be remembered for the good person that she was because that’s all she has been,” Moore said.

On Friday, Crimeline released a bulletin announcing a $5,000 reward for information in Collier’s death. The Orange County Sheriff’s Office urges people who know something to call Crimeline at (800) 423-8477.

Collier’s family is planning her funeral and is raising money to cover the costs on GoFundMe. Part of the funds will also go towards mental health services for her two daughters.

The family is also hosting a candlelight vigil at 4:30 p.m. on Thursday at Downey Park.

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