HARTFORD – Hartford Police closed a block of Barbour Avenue to accommodate the large crowd that gathered for a community vigil Thursday night. They were there to remember Tashauna Jackson, 23 of Hartford, who was found dead in Bloomfield on Tuesday morning.
“We pleaded for the community to come out and come out in numbers and they came out ,” said Jackson’s aunt Ana Perez.
Community members said they wanted to come to support Jackson’s family. She leaves behind a 5-year-old son and a grieving mother.
“It’s a big hole, it’s a really big hole,” said Jackson’s mother Tasha Fitch, describing her loss.
Jackson was reported missing last Tuesday. She was seen getting into a car, of her own free will, with a man on August 11 around 11 p.m. Her family reported her missing the next day, saying she had never run away before.
One week later, members of a search party looking for Jackson found a female body on Granby Street in Bloomfield, later identified as Tashauna.
Perez said, “We’re just trying to do the best to just remember how she lived and not how she died.”
Jackson’s family says that’s hard to do without knowing what happened to Tashauna and who’s responsible.
“It’s agonizing just waiting for them to say that they have made an arrest,” said Azenia Williams, Jackson’s cousin.
The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner is still working to determine the cause of death.
Bloomfield detectives continue to work with the Hartford Police Department investigating the circumstances of this death. Family members say police are close to an arrest, but police couldn’t confirm that.
