Shania Gray, 16, Murdered Before She Could Testify Against Her Alleged Rapist
Her name was Shania Gray.
Gray, a 16-year-old high school junior, never expected her life would come to a tragic end, but it did, all because she had the courage to speak out.
According to Mesquite, Tx. police, the teen met her demise at the hands of Franklin B. Davis, the 30-year-old man she had accused of raping her. He was scheduled to go to trail on four counts of sexual assault of a child next month, but took matters into his own hands, shooting Gray twice before stepping on her neck until she stopped breathing.
Davis met Gray when she was babysitting his two children. And after she declined several times to watch his children again, Gray confessed to her grandmother that Davis had raped her.
Davis claims he never assaulted the teen, and only wanted to talk to Shania last Thursday when he used social media to lure her away from school and kill her.
The man insisted in a jailhouse interview Monday that he only wanted to talk to the teen and prove his innocence but said he was overcome by “demons” once they were face-to-face.
Franklin B. Davis, 30, of the Dallas suburb of Irving, was charged with capital murder Sunday in the death of Shania Gray. Gray was last seen alive Thursday afternoon at Hebron High School in nearby Carrollton. Her body was found Saturday in a secluded area near the Trinity River.
Carrollton police say Davis confessed to arranging a meeting with Gray under false pretenses, driving her to a trail near the river and shooting her twice with a .38-caliber pistol. According to an arrest affidavit, Gray fell into the river and called Davis by his nickname: “Why, Wish?”
Davis told police he then stepped on her neck until she stopped breathing, the affidavit said.
Carrollton police spokesman Jon Stovall said in an email that police believe Davis killed Gray because she was about to testify against him.
Gray confessed to shooting Shania, telling police, he was “fighting demons,” and felt like “a different person was in me.” He has been charged with capital murder and is being held on $2 million bail.
Shania Gray’ tragic murder is heartbreaking for her friends and family who remember Gray as a girl who loved to give hugs and talk about her future.
Shelby Holland, Gray’s junior varsity basketball coach at Horn High School, told a local Dallas news outlet, “We want to spend our time talking about the hugs she was constantly giving out, the wonderful life she held for us while she was here. To see the kind of kid she was and that untapped potential for the kind of woman she would become – it’s just sad to sit here and think, `We’ll never know what kind of great young woman she’d become.’”
Hmm…these are some interesting comments. I personally don’t believe any Clutch supporter would not desire to support and protect ALL our youth. By reading most of your comments, it seems as if the majority of us here are traditional or either non-traditionally “passionate” educated people. Real quickly, I merely was hoping we would turn this sad tragedy [with different names and faces] into a “preventable discussion”.
Someone mentioned Shaniya Davis because of her, my heart bleeds everyday for these young ladies which doesn’t discount our young men.
To state: “We have to protect our daughters, be mindful of their environment, situations, and people” was stated as a cognitive response to this article. We do have to PROTECT our daughters… In other words, (think) before you allow your daughters to be around every man. If you have a daughter, don’t be as trustworthy. Perform a background check on the family she is babysitting for, don’t let any and everybody in your house, don’t do sleepovers as examples. . I’m not speaking to anyone in particular, but to any parent or guardian that can save your daughter.
My desire is to NOT to see, read or hear about another child being molested, raped, or experiencing domestic violence just as much as it is not to hear of another child being killed. . I know we are on the same page here. I just wanted to clarify that information. As we ALL are learning and sharing different/ better ways to raise our boys; let’s discover ways in which to prevent these young ladies from being brutalized. We can do both at that same time.
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well they have one thing in common..its mostly men raping them,…so yea, its still a problem
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@SMH
While made crudely, you do bring up an interesting point. There are some families that are more vulnerable than others. Decades ago, the feminists tried to portray the nuclear family as the biggest threat to women and children but we know now that the nuclear family is the safest place for women and children. Married, biological fathers are among the safest men for women and children. Once you bring strange men, transient men, non related men in the picture the risk to children increases tremendously. These predators are reluctant to go after children where there is a present consistent male figure around.
The only one I am blaming here is the guilty but lets not pretend that there isn’t a correlation between broken homes and vulnerable, exploitable children.
When will you stop blaming other people for what black boys and men do? You are telling the world that black boys and men can not be trusted, but feared and therefore hated.
^Sorry but you’re just too silly to be taken seriously.
Wow. Let’s stop with the victim blaming and focus on the real issue: this girl who died senselessly. The person who is to blame is a grown man who decided a gun was the solution to his problems. That’s the culprit. Rape and murder happen all the time regardless of the best precautions we take as humans. And it can happen even in homes that are parented by two loving, caring individuals. In fact, my sister’s friend was literally snatched from in front of her home in an upscale neighborhood and raped and nearly killed many, many years ago. Sometimes people just do crazy things and go off and kill people. I think we are all reacting because it’s scary to think that the world is so chaotic and random that people we love could be taken out at any moment.
If we can point the fingers and say “this is why that happened,” then we’re in control and can keep those bad things at bay. But the truth is, things happen. And the people committing the acts should be punished.
Your mother was clearly unfit.
@Janaé, Beats not knowing my father any day lol.
This isn’t rocket science. If you can’t intelligently refute anything I say, don’t drop another emotional blurb to reveal how much of a dumb kunt you are.
This is terrible…….
I really feel sorry for you. How sad to use this poor girl’s tragedy as a “let’s defend black men” argument. I pray you don’t have daughters.
As far as I can see, no one turned this to a defensive argument for black men. I can guarantee you though that most every topic on here invariably nests an attack on black men.
Any marginally intelligent person would quickly identify that all I’ve said here is in the best interest of potential victims. The methodical approach to solving maladies is to identify their root cause and annihilate them. Prevention is better than cure. I only speak the truth and you know it because you could never refute anything I say and would rather blurt out emotional nonsense. Don’t get mad at me because more than 70% of you are associated with the problem in one form or another.
Shouldn’t you be praying instead that incompetent and dysfunctional women don’t bring innocent children into less-than-ideal situations? You continue to prove the infantile level of mental maturity I was talking about. You should be feeling sorry for yourself.
@Nestafan2
“How sad to use this poor girl’s tragedy as a “let’s defend black men” argument.”
I wish some of these comments didnt put all black men, even black boys, on trial. We cant just talk about ways in which we can protect children when they are outside the house, when they are online, when they are not in the company of trusty worthy adults. The only thing we can devolve into is condeming black men and even boys as rapist and murderers?