Family, friends mourn homicide victim

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. (WAVY) - Along with Newport News police, the victim's family is trying to figure out why 25-year-old Dominique Wharton was shot and killed early Tuesday morning.

Family members say Wharton had everything to live for--he wasn't married, he did not have any children and was attending community college. A relative says he was trying to turn his life around then this happened.

"We don't know what he was doing out here or who he was visiting or seeing," said Lati Moody, a relative. "We don't know anything."

Moody says the family recently lost her aunt, his grandmother and she says the family needs some closure.

"This is our loved one," she said. "Nobody's perfect but the way he was killed, that person don't need to be walking around out here like that and took a life."

One of his friends says he's having trouble understanding it all.

"He was a strong individual yet in these circumstances we live in today he had to succumb to what happened. Its a sad cycle but we have to stop it and end it somewhere," Marcel Harrell said. "I hope that this is a beginning to it because quite frankly I'm tired of seeing my friends murdered and killed."

He says Dominique was a good man with a big heart.