(NewsNation) — Five days after 21-year-old Allison Rice was found riddled with bullets in her car at a train crossing, local authorities are saying they believe the murder was a random attack.
“This appears to be a totally isolated random-type act” Baton Rouge District Attorney Hillar Moore said at a press conference Wednesday.
The LSU senior was gunned down after leaving an arcade near campus around 2 a.m. Friday. Her family told NewsNation Rice had no arguments, exes or relationships to be concerned about.
“Allie had no bad blood — no enemies,” Michael Grainer, Rice’s uncle, said on “Rush Hour” Wednesday. “We truly think it’s a random act of violence. Some monster just took the life of a poor innocent child.”
Rumors have been swirling that Rice’s death was part of a gang initiation. When a local station asked the DA about the allegations, he didn’t rule it out but said he had no evidence to support it.
“You got probably 20,000 young females at LSU alone out there that are all wondering, Can I be next?” retired Baton Rouge Police Chief Pat Englade told “Rush Hour” Wednesday.
Englade served as the Baton Rouge police chief for more than three decades. With more than six dozen homicides in the city this year and no leads in the Rice case, the former chief said people are panicked.
“I have been nonstop with my phone ringing with people trying to get information — trying to get some safety courses set up,” Englade said.
Without any publicly known surveillance video or witnesses, he continued, it will take an all-out effort from law enforcement and community to solve Rice’s case.
“I think that this case will be solved by somebody in the community that knows something, so I think you have to ramp up the heat as much as you can on the streets to get somebody to turn these individuals over,” Englade said.
An urgent manhunt is still underway and has prompted Mayor Sharon Weston Broome to once again call for an end to the violence plaguing the state’s capital city. So far this year, there have been more than six dozen reported homicides in Baton Rouge.
Police do not have a suspect or a motive at this time, but citywide and statewide manhunts are underway.