Family, friends come out for vigil to remember woman killed in Columbia

Pastor Scott Claybrook had just met Shamya Brimmage before gunshots killed her Tuesday.

Claybrook, a pastor at Legacy Point Church, prayed with Brimmage after the first incident of gunfire outside her home in the 1000 block of Madison Street. Claybrook returned to the home Thursday evening to pray with her family, a picture of Shamya with her two children beaming behind him.

“Bring peace, God, and let us be able to rejoice for the life that was Nikki,” Claybrook said to a crowd of nearly 100 people.

Friends and family of Shamya Brimmage called her “Nikki,” the name spelled out in candles in the front lawn of the home where she died. The vigil included the sale of red and purple candles, Brimmage’s favorite colors, to help cover the cost of a funeral through H.T. May & Son.

“Bring peace to these streets,” Claybrook prayed, a chorus of people agreeing with him. “We ask for you to silence the violence, as so many have asked for for years now.”

Many of Brimmage’s family members did not wish to speak on the record, citing the difficult times they were experiencing.

Bullets fired from outside the home around 10 p.m. Tuesday killed Brimmage while she was inside, celebrating her 25th birthday. Police believe the shots fired earlier that day are connected, but no one has been arrested for the shootings directly. Darold Pruitt was taken into custody for resisting arrest after several witnesses put his truck at the scene. Pruitt allegedly did not come out of the home he was at, which also had the same Chevy Avalanche outside it. Officers saw the same bullet casings in the car that they found at the scene of the shooting.

A former employee of Brimmage’s at Loop Liquor also started a fund drive to help with the funeral.

Brimmage is Columbia’s first homicide victim of 2017.