New Detective, New Push to Solve Local High School Student’s Murder

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – “She wasn’t ready to die. So, if there’s anybody out there who knows what happened to my daughter, please say something. Please say something,” Frenetta Hammonds says through tears, to a row of local TV news cameras.

Shania Hammonds died in February of 2017. Her body was discovered behind her best friend’s home on Willow Gate Lane in east Charlotte. There were no obvious signs of what killed the 18-year-old Mallard Creek High School senior. The medical examiner ruled the cause of death, “undetermined.”

To say Frenetta Hammonds was frustrated by the investigation, is putting it mildly. She says, of the first detective assigned to the case, “To me, he wasn’t doing his job. He wasn’t a good detective.” And, “I was on the phone every day. And I was never getting a response from this guy. It got to the point where I was about to start coming down here and knocking on some doors.”

It didn’t get to that.

CMPD Lt. Susan Manassah, who leads the department’s violent crime unit, started asking the detective questions about the case this past February, a year after Shania’s death. Manassah says, “I knew immediately when I asked Detective Berman about the case, that the answers I was getting were not appropriate.”

That detective, Corey Berman, was removed from the case. Manassah says, “That particular detective, did he fail her? Yes. Did CMPD? No.”

Frenetta Hammond says, “She had a lot to live for. She had a lot she wanted to do.” Hammonds says her daughter was fun and outgoing, had her life planned out, and wanted to go into the military. She’s hopeful the new detective on the case will make an arrest. She says, “I feel like the person, or persons, who I feel like harmed my daughter, it’s gonna come out.”

There is a $10,000 reward for any information that can help CMPD solve Shania’s case.