Mother of 11-year-old girl shot and killed in Miami remembers daughter having a “pure soul”

MIAMI — When Chantrell Manning talks about her 11-year-old daughter Taliyan Clarke, she remembers her as a loving, innocent child.

“She was a butterfly, beautiful. Very inspiring,” she said. “She just had like, a pure soul. Such a sweetheart. Sweet, sweet baby,” said Chantrell Manning of her daughter, Taliyan Clarke.

“She lights up the room. She just was like the all-around girl. It’s just so sad, you know, that she’s no longer here with us,” Manning continued.

Around noon on Tuesday, police received a call about a shooting at an apartment complex on Northwest 2nd Avenue and Northwest 17th Street in the Overtown neighborhood of Miami.

According to police, Taliyan was staying with her dad Titato Clarke, his mother Charlene Ann Webster and his girlfriend Nancy Severe, when she was shot while in a bedroom with her 9-year-old brother.

Clarke rushed his daughter to Jackson Memorial Hospital, but it was too late.

“There were two children allegedly alone in a bedroom, one child, firing a gun shooting the other, then died because of that wound. All three of those adults count as caretakers under the statute,” said an attorney in bond court.

According to the statute, Clarke, Webster, and Severe are all considered caregivers under Florida law, and we’re all arrested and charged with manslaughter.

Severe, Clark’s girlfriend, claimed in court she did not know that weapons were in the house. When police searched the home, they found a gun on top of a dog cage wrapped in a blanket.

Now as Taliyan’s father, grandmother and his girlfriend sit behind bars, her mother is planning a funeral and pleading for answers as to why this happened to her innocent daughter.

“I don’t feel like everyone is responsible, I just feel like they should’ve been more attentive. Be more attentive to the children,” Manning said.

According to police, Clarke has 12 previous felony convictions. All three suspects are being held without bond.