Young mother and Cleveland fashion model who walked runways in New York murdered during attempted robbery

CLEVELAND, Ohio (WOIO) - A young mother and Cleveland fashion model is dead. Shot in Euclid, in what may have been an attempted robbery.

The victim, Shalaymiah Moore, 34, had gone out to dinner with a friend according to her parents. She was dropping that friend off in the area of Lakeshore and E. 204th when two men approached her vehicle and pulled out a gun. She died at the hospital.

Her mother Rochelle Moore couldn’t fight back the tears as she talked about her daughter, “She was a free spirit who had no enemies. She had finally reached her happy place.”

Moore of East Cleveland says the crime happened early Friday morning. Her daughter attempted to get away from the gunman who had approached the driver’s side of her vehicle, “She turned and they shot her in the back and it went through her heart.”

Shalaymiah Moore was a mother to a 13-year-old son, a nurse’s assistant taking care of her aging parents and a fashion model who took to the runways during New York Fashion Week, as well as Detroit’s Fashion Week. She was in the pinnacle of her career and coming into her own.

“She had a beautiful future. She was a model scheduled to go to London in February, and she didn’t deserve to die like that,” Rochelle Moore said.

Tragically, this isn’t the first time Rochelle Moore has lost a child to gun violence. “Thirteen years ago I lost my son to gun violence here in East Cleveland, so this is my second child I’ve lost to gun violence. He was 33 and she was 34,” Moore tells 19 News.

And the East Cleveland mother says her daughter’s young son is devastated and doesn’t understand why his mother was taken from him.

“He sent me a text a few minutes ago and asked me why did this have to happen to her,” Moore said.

A beautiful life tragically cut short, and a family crying out for young people to put the guns down so that no other parents know have to bury a child.

Rochelle Moore urges parents to hug and kiss their children when they say good-bye, no matter how old they are, “Stay close to your family. Pay attention. We need to go back to the old way of neighborhoods protecting one another.”

The victim’s family says a 21-year-old man has been arrested for the crime. Euclid Police did not return a call for comment to confirm and let us know if they are looking for any other suspects.

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