Couple charged after 17-year-old girl on her way to the zoo was killed in seemingly random highway shooting

A Texas couple is behind bars after a Missouri high school student was killed in a shooting while she was driving on a highway on her way to go meet friends at the zoo.

Willie Herndon, 42, and Taiya Herndon, 45, stand accused of one count each of first-degree murder and armed criminal action in the death of 17-year-old Alyssa Wilson, according to the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office.

Both defendants hail from Arlington, Texas, police said.

The underlying incident occurred on Oct. 14 along Interstate 170 in Overland, Missouri, an inner-ring suburb of St. Louis.

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That day, a white SUV pulled over on the shoulder of I-170 heading southbound, according to surveillance video obtained by law enforcement, Dallas-based ABC affiliate WFAA reports.

In the footage, the husband is seen getting out of the vehicle near the St. Charles Rock Road exit, then a gunshot is heard, then he gets back inside the vehicle before it drives away, investigators say.

Around the same time, Wilson was driving past the area where the SUV was parked, according to the Major Case Squad of Greater St. Louis, a hybrid law enforcement agency in the region.

Wilson was on her way to meet friends at the St. Louis Zoo when she was shot, police said. A 911 call came in about a lone vehicle crash, and first responders found the girl suffering from a gunshot wound. She was rushed to a nearby hospital where she later died.

“Alyssa was 17,” the victim’s father said at a news conference announcing the arrests earlier this week. “Excited about her life. Excited about her future. She had 60 days until she turned 18.”

Authorities allege the couple fled the state after the shooting. License plate reader technology helped investigators track the SUV to a hotel in Caseyville, Illinois, a small town some 25 miles east of St. Louis, police said. After the couple was taken into custody, evidence linked to the shooting was found during a search of the hotel room they had rented, according to law enforcement.

Willie Herndon is being detained on a $1 million cash-only bond in the St. Louis County Jail. Taiya Herndon, who is also charged with one count of hindering prosecution for allegedly helping her husband try to escape, is being held on a $500,000 cash-only bond.

Prosecutors have described the violence as random but otherwise did not immediately assign a motive. Investigators, however, are currently looking for connections to other cases.

Wilson was a senior at McCluer North High School who was about to graduate and attend college, school officials said.

“News like this is heartbreaking, and it is difficult to find the right words to express the sadness we feel as a school community,” the school’s principal said in a statement. “In this time of loss, please keep Alyssa, her family, and all who loved her in your thoughts and heart.”

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