‘Senseless’: Service honors woman fatally shot over basketball game in South Dallas

CEDAR HILL — Asia Womack’s obituary is divided into four quarters, like those of a basketball game.

First quarter: Asia Janae Womack is born on February 15, 2001, in Fort Worth. She goes on to graduate from James Madison High School in Dallas, then heads to college at Texas A&M at Commerce, and she’s a devoted member of Gospel Tabernacle Church in Mesquite.

In every part of Texas, she’s known for her big heart and an even bigger smile.

Second quarter: From an early age, Womack’s family says she was a natural athlete. In the obituary, they write “Asia was designed like no other,” and “her gift was expressed through her love for basketball.” Her friends say life wasn’t always easy for her growing up, and in the face of loss and hardship, the sport was her favorite escape.

Playing basketball gave Womack purpose. Last week, it cost the 21-year-old her life.

Third quarter: About 7:40 p.m. Oct. 3, officers were dispatched to the 4100 block of Hamilton Avenue, near Lawhon Street, where they found Womack on the sidewalk with multiple gunshot wounds. Her mother, Andrea Womack, told the slaying occurred after her daughter beat a man in a game at T.G. Terry Park.

He took his kids and brother home before returning and shooting her five times.

“It was senseless,” Andrea Womack said at her daughter’s public viewing Wednesday afternoon at Sacred Funeral Home.

“A life, over nothing.”

‘She called him a brother’

Dallas police issued an arrest warrant Tuesday for 31-year-old Cameron Hogg in connection to Womack’s death. As of Wednesday evening, he remained at large.

No one referred to the alleged shooter by name at Womack’s service, but Andrea Womack emphasized her daughter had long trusted the man who ultimately killed her.

“She took calls from him when he was in jail and would buy him whatever he needed,” Andrea Womack said. “She called him a brother.”

Womack’s aunt, Brandy Wickware, focused instead on her niece, and the future those five bullets cut short.

Wickware described Womack as a kind, loving, gentle young woman with “a mountain of goals and aspirations.”

Womack would have loved to play professional basketball, yes, but she was also working toward a degree in kinesiology, or the study of human movement, which Wickware said she’s sure Womack would have applied to basketball “someway, somehow.”

Andrea Womack said her daughter had even talked about becoming a police officer, and maybe one day, a detective.

“There were things she wanted to do and accomplish, but unfortunately, this happened, and those choices went with her,” Wickware said through tears. “But for her to be the age she was, and to have as many dreams as she had, that shows the kind of life she lived.”

‘More than a child’

Terry McGill, one of Womack’s lifelong best friends, said they “didn’t grow up in a good neighborhood,” and together, tried to keep busy. Whenever they weren’t in school, McGill explained they spent most of their time outside, playing basketball, and even mowing lawns and washing cars for extra cash.

“Your friends became your family when you’re going through hard times,” he said. “Where we come from, we love our people unconditionally. We know what it’s like to not have it easy, and Asia would have done anything to make life just a little easier on someone else.”

One room over, Womack lay in an open white casket, adorned by red roses. McGill said every time he looks at her, he can’t help but think about what his friend would say if she had survived the shooting.

In the search for any anger or bitterness, McGill comes up short.

“Sure, she would’ve been upset at first, but she would have found it in herself to forgive him,” he said. “That’s how good she was.”

McGill said Womack’s positive outlook on life will live on through him in her absence.

“You have to trust God, and in trusting God, I have decided I am happy for her, because there’s no more struggle,” McGill said. “We all have to leave this earth one day, and she did it doing something she loves.”

Silver linings haven’t come so quickly for Andrea Womack. Her daughter’s funeral is Thursday, and she has yet to grasp how you can spend 21 years raising a woman to follow her dreams, only to bury her with them in a matter of minutes.

Fourth quarter: Womack’s loved ones go on to honor her memory, however they can.

In addition to a daughter, a niece and a good friend, Womack was a granddaughter, an aunt, a sister and a cousin to many.

“So many people loved her in so many different ways,” Andrea Womack said. “I know I’m going to be missing more than a child; she was my friend, my football partner, my everything. I’m at a loss, I really am. I just don’t understand.”