A young girl was killed in Milwaukee after a stray bullet hit her in her bedroom.

13-year-old Sandra Parks died last Thursday night (November 15). According to Pix 11, she wrote an award-winning essay about gun violence in her hometown just two years ago.

“We shall overcome has been lost in lies of who we are. Who we have become,” she wrote in that essay, in part. “We need to rewrite our story so that faith and hope for a better tomorrow is not only within us. But we believe it and we put it into action.”

At the time of the essay, Parks was just 11 and the main focus of it was about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. It took third place in her school district and called for more empathy and less negativity. It also stressed the importance of education and using it to make the world a better place.

On Friday night, family and friends came together to remember bright young girl. Bernice Parks, her mother, told the news station just how special her daughter was.

“My baby was not violent. My baby did not like violence,” she said. “She was a star that was trying to get out by didn’t know how. Don’t never forget my baby.” Bernice set up a GoFundMe to help raise money for a memorial service for her daughter.

Two suspects have been captured and identified. 26-year-old Isaac Barnes and 27-year-old Untrell Oden are facing homicide charges in the shooting death of Parks.

Our thoughts are with Sandra Parks’ family and friends during this difficult time.