‘She would forgive them.’ Former UK nurse, 82, killed in Lexington cross fire
An 82-year-old Lexington woman has died after she was shot while getting out of a car outside her home in the afternoon, according to police and a family member.
Alice Carter, 82, was shot in the 500 block of Fifth Street and pronounced dead just after 4 p.m., the coroner’s office said Thursday. Lexington police responded to the area just before 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday after a report of multiple shots fired. Police found Carter shot at the scene, Lt. Chris Cooper said Wednesday.
Carter was an innocent bystander who was hit when multiple people in separate vehicles exchanged “dozens of gunshots,” police spokeswoman Brenna Angel said.
“She and a family member were getting out of their car at the time of the incident and were completely uninvolved with the shots being fired,” Angel said.
Carter had just gotten home after spending time with her nephew and was trying to get out of the car when she was shot in the chest, according to her daughter, Vanessa Smothers. Smothers talked to media on her front porch Thursday and pointed out the spot on the street, not far from her front door, where her mother was killed.
Kentucky grandmother was covered in blood
“It was an innocent woman that got killed by some stupid young boys wanting to show how tough they are by shooting guns, trying to kill each other,” Smothers said. “They killed an innocent woman.”
Smothers is one of Carter’s eight children, she said. Carter also left behind grandchildren and great-grandchildren, Smothers said. Carter was a nurse at the University of Kentucky for many years, a devoted member of Macedonia Baptist Church in Keene, and someone who would help or feed anyone who needed it.
Carter’s grandson Stanley was dropping Carter off at the home she and Smothers shared when the shots rang out, Smothers said. Smothers said she ignored the shots at first because she hears them in the neighborhood sometimes. But then, she heard her nephew yelling her name, telling her to duck and that his granny had been shot.
Smothers said she ran out immediately to the vehicle’s passenger side to check on her mother and saw that Carter’s chest was covered in blood. She applied pressure to the wound until a police officer arrived and took over.
Carter was taken to University of Kentucky Chandler Hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
Smothers said her mother would’ve already forgiven the people involved in the shooting that killed her.
“My mother would use the religious way, she would not have any hatred … she would forgive them from the bottom of her heart,” Smothers said. “Me, on the other hand, I’m not right there right now, that’s not going to work for me … I’m suffering. God’s going to have to work on me on that.”
‘Stupid, young boys’ killed beautiful, Christian woman
Smothers said she would tell the people involved in the shooting that their efforts to act tough destroy lives and kill innocent people.
“I want to say from the bottom of my heart, from the depths of my soul, you guys have taken away a beautiful woman because you refuse to solve your problems like a wise man, and you need to suffer just like our family suffered. You need to get the death penalty … that’s what you deserve.”
Smothers said she and her family haven’t been able to eat or sleep since the shooting that killed Carter Wednesday afternoon.
“It has hurt not only her children, her grandchildren, her great-grandchildren, but also the community that loved her,” Smothers said. “This is something that’s going to be hard for us to get over. We’re going to have a hard time dealing with this for a while.”
Police didn’t have concrete information about any suspects as of Wednesday evening, Cooper said. Investigators remained on scene for several hours and found “numerous” shell casings and some property damage caused by the shots fired.
“Police are actively following up on leads in this case,” Angel said Thursday morning.
Carter’s death is the 28th homicide of the year in Lexington. There were 20 in the same time period in 2019, a year which set a record for homicides with 30, according to Lexington police statistics.
Anyone with information related to the shooting is asked to call Lexington police at 859-258-3600. Anonymous tips can be submitted by using a free P3 Tips app available at www.p3tips.com. Information can also be sent anonymously through Crime Stoppers at 859-253-2020 or Bluegrasscrimestoppers.com.
This story was originally published October 22, 2020 at 9:27 AM.