Pregnant woman killed in Atlanta hours before flight to see sister, family says

For more than a year, Qualeisha Barnes talked about having a baby.

At 14 weeks pregnant and with a gender reveal party on the horizon, her family said things had settled into place.

The pregnancy, though exciting, brought on intense morning sickness and weakness. On Wednesday morning, Barnes had a flight to Detroit to see her older sister, someone she found comfort in.

“She was coming so I could take care of her. She wanted me to cook,” Shatara Davis told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Saturday. “She just needed her sister.”

But Barnes never made it onto the plane.

Around 1:30 a.m. Wednesday, Atlanta police said Barnes, 36, was found fatally shot inside her vehicle in the 2900 block of Springside Place. The area is less than 15 minutes northeast of Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, where Barnes was meant to catch a 9 a.m. flight.

Few other details on the shooting were released, and no arrests have been made.

Francine Lopez-Stewart saw her daughter for the last time Tuesday. Though Barnes lived in Buckhead, she had been staying at her mother’s Sandy Springs apartment for about a month because of her pregnancy symptoms. Lopez-Stewart said Barnes left the apartment Tuesday evening and the two chatted on the phone until about midnight.

During that call, they agreed Barnes should arrive at the airport by 6:30 a.m. Promptly at that time Wednesday, Lopez-Stewart called to check in. No one picked up.

An hour later, she asked Davis to check the location of Barnes’ phone. It pinged to a bank. Confused but trying to remain calm, Lopez-Stewart said she continued with her morning.

Then around 9 a.m., she said she got a call from an Atlanta police detective. Lopez-Stewart said she knew it was likely bad news, and then she learned her daughter had been killed.

“How could somebody just take my baby from me like that?” she asked through a strained voice.

Lopez-Stewart said she didn’t recognize the home the vehicle was parked near or the neighborhood where her daughter was found.

Qualeisha Barnes (right) was a loving aunt to Shatara Davis’ children. Barnes was 14 weeks pregnant when she was killed, her family says. (Courtesy of the family)

Davis, 38, had been preparing to pick up her little sister at the airport in Detroit. Instead, she boarded a plane to Atlanta to be with their mother.

The two cities have always been the backdrop of their lives. Davis and Barnes were born in Detroit but lived in Atlanta as teenagers until eventually moving back to Detroit. In 2012, Davis said the family returned to Atlanta and she stayed until 2019.

While Barnes called Atlanta her home base, she found success in Detroit as a rapper and boutique owner. She would often perform with friends at different venues and released a few songs of her own, Davis said.

“Everybody knew her differently, but I just knew her as my little sister. I was always her protector, so when she came to me, she was just shy and quiet,” Davis said.

That timid personality meant she had to work through nerves before performing and relied heavily on her friends to hype her up. She went by the stage name “Siditty.”

Lopez-Stewart said her daughter always had an entrepreneurial spirit and opened a boutique just outside Detroit in 2022. The store came after years of Barnes selling clothing online.

When Barnes enrolled in nursing school at South College in Chamblee, Lopez-Stewart said her daughter closed the store and took a break from rapping. She said Barnes only had two more semesters before earning her bachelor’s degree in nursing.

The family said Barnes changed careers to better support the family lifestyle she envisioned for herself. After years of being a devoted aunt to Davis’ children, her sister said Barnes felt ready to raise her own.