Coworker remembers woman killed in Columbia shooting

Katherine Goldman knew the woman that trained her at Hardee’s on West Worley Street for six months. The company would move her to a different store eventually in Columbia, but it was enough time to get drawn into Shamya Brimmage’s infectious attitude.

It was in the same restaurant that she learned her work trainer had been killed.

“She’s unforgettable,” Goldman said.

Brimmage, who often went by Nikki, was killed by gunfire on March 21 in her home on Madison Street in central Columbia. Another woman was hit in the shooting around 10 p.m. Two men, Darold Pruitt and Devontre Kennedy, are charged with second-degree murder in connection to the shooting. Informants told police both men were involved in the incident. Bullet casings found outside Pruitt’s truck in north Columbia matched those found at the scene. Both men deny being there at the time.

Goldman considers Brimmage an innocent bystander in the shooting that took her life on her 25th birthday. She couldn’t think of a motive behind someone wanting to shoot her. Brimmage, who constantly cracked jokes and made customers laugh, worked and lived for her two children, Goldman said. An expecting mother herself, the two had plans for Goldman’s baby shower later this year.

“We were talking about when I’m due and what we’re going to do for the baby shower and everything like that,” Goldman said. “And now I get to plan it alone.”

Officers came to that same house earlier Tuesday for reports of another shooting. Pruitt admitted to officers he was in the area at that time, but said he was the target of the shooting. No arrests have been made in that incident.

The family and some local businesses are trying to help Brimmage’s family southern Illinois family with funeral expenses. A former manager at Loop Liquor started a fund drive the day after her death. The Hardee’s on Worley, where Brimmage’s cousin also works, recently handed over its donations to the family for the funeral ceremony at H.T. May & Son. An online fund was also started last week.