Deborah Pearl, 53, was shot and killed after a two-car collision in Ohio. (COURTESY SOUTH EAST HARLEY-DAVIDSON) |
Early Saturday morning, Deborah Pearl, a 53-year-old African-American mother and employee of a Cleveland area Harley Davidson Diner in Northeast Ohio, was on her to way work.
At 7:20 a.m., as she was driving her Ford Taurus, she had no idea that she was living her very last moments on this earth. Matthew Ryan Desha, a 29-year-old white man, ran a red light at an intersection and hit Pearl’s car with his Jeep.
After his car flipped many times and hers was pushed into the intersection, what happened next was like something out of a horror movie.
As Deborah Pearl got out of her car to assess the situation, Matthew Desha did as well. Except he also grabbed his 5.56-millimeter high powered assault rifle. According to witnesses, Pearl then proceeded to put her hands in the air in attempt to save her life from the armed stranger who had narrowly avoided killing them both in the crash just seconds earlier.
Matthew Ryan Desha, 29, has been charged with murder after police say he shot and killed Deborah Pearl, 53, following a two-car collision in Ohio. (SOLON POLICE DEPT.) |
It mattered not to Matthew Desha. A witness who called 911 reported hearing him fire off at least 12 shots. At first, the appeared to be random. The 911 caller heard Deborah Pearl, who was a sitting duck at that point, begin screaming. Desha then began aiming and firing at her. While it has not yet been released how many times she was hit, when police arrived the scene, Deborah Pearl was found there on pavement mortally wounded and bleeding out.
Devastated and shocked, her husband and other family members came to the scene, and, understandably so, could not even muster up the words to explain how they were feeling.
Matthew Desha was arrested near the scene. Early Monday morning he was charged with the murder of Deborah Pearl. Police have not mentioned a motive for the brutal murder, but the entire scene is riddled with awful implications.