It was no easy task for the family of 8-year-old De'Maree Adkins to let her go.
"That should've have happened," said Linda Jackson, De'Maree's great aunt.
But next to the road where she lost her life, close friends and the community joined with Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo to ease the pain, trying to make sense of something so senseless.
"We love this family," said Jackson.
More than a hundred people joined to release balloons and honor De'Maree's memory Wednesday night.
This happened several hours after Houston Police made an arrest in the case, though they wouldn't tell us too much about the 19-year-old suspect.
Investigators tell us De'Maree was asleep in the backseat of her mother's car last Saturday morning when another car crashed into theirs on West Fuqua and Beltway 8. Then someone in another car pulled up and started shooting, hitting De'Maree in the chest.
"De'Maree has been my little angel since kindergarten," said Terri Zawacki, her third grade teacher at MacGregor Elementary School. "When you look at her face, you see an angel and that's what she's always been to me."
Police tell us De'Maree and her mother were not the intended targets of the shooting, instead they were just an innocent family riding along when a tragedy occurred.
The victim has been charged with murder.