Investigators now believe the shooting of five young people in Camden, New Jersey over the weekend was not a random act of violence and was not drug-related.
The gunman, who was masked and carrying a machete, ambushed the friends, who were sitting in a parked car. He shot all of them, killing two. The gunman remains at large.
The three surviving victims are all in critical condition at Cooper University Hospital.
NBC10's Ted Greenberg talked to the godmother of one of the victims, Khalil Gibson, who was 20 years old and a student at Camden County College.
"For anybody to just decide that they have the right to take anybody's life is unbearable," Betty Matthews said.
The gunman got in the driver's side of the car in Camden's Fairview neighborhood and fired repeatedly, according to prosecutors. With the victims still inside the car, he drove the car to a dirt road nearby. One of the girls was wounded, played dead, and then escaped.
Stacie Moore says her daughter was shot and had six of her teeth knocked out.
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"She's a fighter and she fought her way out of that car," Moore said. "He tried to shoot her and he couldn't shoot her a second time to kill her. He beat her and knocked out her teeth."
Sims survived, along with two 16-year-old girls.
Gibson and 18-year-old Jewel Manire were killed. All five victims had been at a party at a roller rink prior to the shootings. Investigators are trying to figure out if there's a link between the attack and a fight earlier in the night.
