Mother shot and killed in Central Gulf Coast diocese’s transitional home

[Episcopal News Service] Amiayia White, 28, a mother and resident of an Episcopal-supported transitional family program at Wilmer Hall in Mobile, Alabama, was shot and killed there on Oct. 21.

“Last night, a former companion of one of the residents in our transitional family program broke into the cottage where she was staying with her infant child and killed her,” the Rev. Pratt Paterson, a deacon and executive director of Wilmer Hall wrote in an Oct. 22 letter to Episcopalians in the Diocese of the Central Gulf Coast. “Her child is safe and unharmed and is now in the care of [the state] Department of Human Resources, and the shooter is now in police custody. Please pray for her and especially for her child, who has lost his mother.”

Mobile police arrested a 21-year-old suspect, David Smith, on Oct. 22, according to news reports.

Paterson said police officers have assured him White’s murder was an isolated attack. Wilmer Hall is cooperating with law enforcement investigators, and there will be a police presence on campus “for the foreseeable future,” the letter said.

Alabama Bishop Richard Hooker Wilmer founded a home for orphans and widows who were victims of war, poverty and disease in Tuscaloosa in 1864. The Church Home for Orphans moved to Mobile in 1916 and was renamed Wilmer Hall in 1948. Churches in lower Alabama became part of the Pensacola, Florida-based Diocese of the Central Gulf Coast when it was created in 1970. Wilmer Hall has received support from the diocese since then.

In 2007, Wilmer Hall began a transitional living program for young adults who have been homeless, are at risk of becoming homeless or are living in unsafe or unhealthy homes. Seven years later, it began a transitional family program serving young mothers and their children facing the same conditions.

“My heart is broken at the death of our sister in Christ and at this violent assault on our Wilmer Hall community. In the wake of this tragic death, I am even more aware that our ministry with young women and children helps us save lives by promoting self-sufficiency and allowing families to escape the cycle of violence,” Paterson wrote.

Central Gulf Coast Bishop Russell Kendrick called the work of accompanying people out of cycles of poverty and violence “Gospel work,” and offered a prayer:

“O God, whose mercies cannot be numbered: Accept our prayers on behalf of your sister and grant her an entrance into the land of light and joy, in the fellowship of your saints; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.”