Crossfire killed daughter, father

Terri Coles flipped through dozens of pictures of her daughter. In some, she was a cheerleader. Others showed her hugging her older brother.

"All of these pictures I look at, she's got a smile on her face," Terri Coles said Saturday afternoon, minutes after returning home from the hospital where she was treated for a gunshot wound.

Taylor died Friday evening at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, less than an hour after she, her mother and father were shot by masked men in a Homewood restaurant.

"We had plans for her," said Terri Coles, 30, of Wilkinsburg, her right arm in a sling.

Two days ago, Taylor was still the 8-year-old with the appetite of a bird, nibbling on potato chips while her family ate chicken. They were going to the movies after dinner at Mr. Tommy's Car Wash and Sandwich Shop.

Family night for Parrish Freeman, Terri Coles and their two children ended as they finished their meals, shortly after 7 p.m. Taylor never got to see the movie "Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius."

Two men wearing handkerchiefs burst into the restaurant shortly after 7 p.m., shooting as they came. Police said they were aiming at the man the family ate with, Thomas Mitchell, 31.

Taylor had walked into the restaurant only 10 minutes earlier, with her big brother, Parrish, 13. She was selling candy, a fund-raiser for an after-school program.

"She did what she always did when she walked in the door; she wanted something to drink," her mother said. "She was always thirsty."

Restaurant owner Tommy Washington, 54, was chatting with Mitchell and the family, picking fries off their plates, when the shooting started. Taylor was shot while she sat, looking out the window, he said.

"She was eating nothing but a bag of chips," Washington said. "I watched a child die. It killed me."

Terri Coles stood frozen by the bullets. After two or three whizzed by, she ducked.

"It's like I didn't believe what was happening," she said. "I remember just wanting them to stop shooting, stop shooting so I could turn around and grab her."

They didn't stop shooting.

Terri Coles saw her daughter clutching the side of a table as she fell backwards, a blood spot on her stomach.

"I saw there was blood on her shirt. I picked her up and she gurgled a couple times," she said, her voice clenching. "I knew she was gone."

Taylor's daddy, the man who had her picture tattooed on his left forearm, died, too, as did the wheelchair-bound Mitchell. Taylor's mother, Terri, 30, was shot in the back and treated at UPMC Presbyterian Hospital in Oakland. Taylor's brother escaped uninjured.

"They told me they carried the little girl out, and I just knew. I just lost it," said Lottie Cottrell, an employee at the Kut & Kurl Beauty Bar in Homewood where Terri Coles worked part-time. "I called her Ta-ta. She was my sweetheart."

Terri Coles said her daughter had characteristics of a leader. She was intelligent, observant.

"Everywhere she went, she left her mark," she said.

Taylor — who answered the phones like a secretary — grew up at the salon, said Tanya Kenney, who also works there. Kenney's two daughters, Britney, 13 and LaShae, 10, were Taylor's best friends, playing while their mothers worked.

"They were all just like shop babies," Kenney said.

Taylor attended Holy Rosary, a school in Homewood and was a pee-wee football cheerleader in Homewood and Wilkinsburg, coached by her mother.

"Whenever you saw Terri, you saw Taylor," Kenney said. "They were more like sisters."

They loved the food at Mr. Tommy's, co-workers at the salon said. The restaurant opened only three months ago and Freeman washed cars there.

Terri Coles hadn't had time to make funeral plans yesterday.

"We plan on having a funeral together," Coles said, "her and her dad."