RIVERVIEW, Florida -- When friends of Iesha Washington and Craig Thompson found out the two had been killed in a shooting early Saturday morning, they did what came naturally to them: They came together.
Cars filled the street in front of the house where Washington lived. People who couldn't fit into the house spread out on the lawn. They shared stories about the girl who turned 18 two weeks ago, and would have been preparing for her senior year of high school.
"We're all so close, we're like a family," friend Tavis Jones says. "If I wanted a good laugh, I'd come around here, just sit in the house and listen to Iesha talk. And I'd just laugh all day."
Jones was even supposed to go to the same party as Washington and Thompson, but a friend who was supposed to drive him never showed up. That party was where the two were shot early Saturday morning when a fight broke out. It brought as many as 400 people to the International Chemical Workers Union building on U.S. 41 near Madison Ave, which was being rented out for the occasion.
"The victims just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time," says Detective Larry McKinnon of the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office. "We don't feel that the gunman was specifically targeting them."
More than a thousand people have become part of a Facebook memorial page for Washington.
McKinnon says the Sheriff's Office has some leads, but is having trouble getting a lot of crucial information from the 200 people who have been interviewed. Investigators urge anyone with information to call (813) 247-8200.
"Last night before Iesha went to the party, she gave me a hug and told me she loved me. That's my last memory of her," Jones says.