Police try to ID drivers, vehicles in North Texas hit-and-run that killed mother of 8

Nicole Lopez
·2 min read
10

As authorities work to identify and find two vehicles and the drivers involved in a hit-and-run in Little Elm that killed a woman on Nov. 1, the victim’s family is pleading for answers.

The crash happened around 8:15 p.m. Nov. 1 in the 26700 block of East University Drive, near Braswell High School, according to a police news release.

Police identified the victim as 41-year-old Rosita Ushanna Sherfield-Rankin. She was walking when she was struck by the vehicles.

A GoFundMe was organized by family members of Sherfield-Rankin to raise donations for the victim’s memorial and funeral, and to support her eight children. She has five sons and three daughters, between the ages of 5 and 24.

Sherfield-Rankin, whose family called her Shanna, was also a student at KD Studios, a Dallas film school, in an effort to pursue an acting career.

“During the journey at KD Studios she touched many of (her) classmates’ lives with her laughter and enthusiasm for life,” her sister Shanaya Jones wrote on the GoFundMe page. “Shanna was the sunshine and brightness in everyone’s life that she met.

“She was a loving mother to 8 beautiful children whom she was greatly passionate & devoted to, and because of this new chapter in life she put her career on hold,” Jones said. “She instilled the importance of making every life moment special no matter what. She meant so much to everyone in her life.”

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Investigators are asking for information from eyewitnesses, local businesses with surveillance video, or local body shops to help locate a dark-colored SUV and a white Honda passenger car. The white car is possibly a Civic, according to police. One or both suspect vehicles should have extensive damage to the front and the front right side, police say.

Authorities are also looking for the suspect drivers and their vehicles to, “conduct a thorough reconstruction of the crash and to conclude the investigation,” police said in the release.

Anyone with information about the drivers or the whereabouts of the vehicles that will help investigators locate them is asked to contact the Little Elm Police Department at 214-975-0460.

Of a $15,000 goal in the GoFundMe, $1,520 was raised as of Tuesday.