Daughter says she believes mother’s killer in El Portal wasn’t a stranger

EL PORTAL, MIAMI, Fla. – Jashanie Ragin is sure someone knows who killed her mother.

“I just know in my heart,” Ragin, 18, said, adding that she believes that whoever it was had been in the apartment before with her mother.

Dominique Lemons, 36, was gunned down outside of the El Portal apartment on Monday, March 14.

Local 10 News went to talk to Ragin inside the same apartment her mother lived in.

“She loved her kids. Everything was about us: Jashaine, Joshua, and Janice,” Ragin said. Lemons’ other two children are 16 and 14 years old.

When officers arrived, Lemons was already dead from her injuries. A witness told Local 10 News that they heard Lemons talking to someone and then there was gunfire.

Ragin believes that Lemons knew her killer.

“She was last seen entering her front door, trying to come inside her home . . . with her back turned. She died on her porch, like she was nothing. That’s not fair.”

The heartbroken daughter has a message for her mother’s killer.

“At the end of the day you took a mother, a sister . . .you took somebody that I needed that me and my siblings needed. And you’re going to have to live with that and I can never, never forgive you for taking my mother away.”

The funeral is set for next Saturday and the family has set up a GoFundMe page to help pay for the cost of her mother’s funeral. Click here for information.

The person who shot Lemons is still out there and Miami-Dade police are hoping someone will come forward with information. Anonymous tips can be called in to Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers at (305) 471-8477 (TIPS).


About the Author

In January 2017, Hatzel Vela became the first local television journalist in the country to move to Cuba and cover the island from the inside. During his time living and working in Cuba, he covered some of the most significant stories in a post-Fidel Castro Cuba. 

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