Ten years after Tyresha Cody, 25, and Tremalik Russell, 21, were found shot inside a parked maroon Pontiac in a South Linden alley, no one has been arrested, and their families say the wait for justice has become its own kind of grief. The shooting happened between East 21st and East 22nd Avenues on a sunny afternoon in August 2016, with neighbors and children reportedly outside when gunfire broke out. Russell died at the scene. Cody died the next day.
According to CW Columbus, the shooter opened fire from inside the car itself, seated alongside Cody and Russell in a vehicle that belonged to Russell's brother. Community advocacy group Mothers Of Murdered Columbus Children has said the shooting occurred around 4 p.m., with the gunman positioned inside the car alongside both victims during broad daylight in a residential stretch of the neighborhood. Malika Robinson told the outlet that people saw what happened because it was a sunny day with people outside and children playing nearby.
The couple had welcomed a newborn daughter, Nevaeh Elizabeth Cody Russell, just 12 days before the shooting. Russell was also the father of six young children. Per an obituary published by Marlan Gary Funeral Home, Cody was a South High School graduate and Wright State University student who had worked as a home health aide, a daycare worker, and a manager at Golden Corral before her death.
Families Still Waiting, Still Asking For Answers
Zawata Cody said the deaths took something precious from her, according to the same CW Columbus report. Robinson added that it is hurtful that the family is still waiting for an arrest a decade later. The families are urging the shooter to come forward, and the outlet reports that Cody herself, before she died, urged the shooter to turn himself in.
Columbus police told CW Columbus they have no updates to provide at this time and declined an on-camera interview about the unsolved double homicide. The killer remains on the run, and the case remains open a decade after the shooting.
Columbus Cold Case Units Have Cracked Similar South Linden Killings
The case is not without recent precedent for resolution. In April, Columbus police arrested 47-year-old Lashonta Sullivan on a murder charge in the 2016 shooting death of Darrin Mitchell, a separate South Linden cold case from the same year, as reported by 10TV WBNS. Sullivan had initially claimed Mitchell was shot elsewhere before forensic evidence established he was shot inside his own home. That arrest showed decade-old South Linden cases can still move forward when physical or testimonial evidence surfaces, a dynamic Hoodline previously covered.
10TV also reported that the Columbus Division of Police announced in January that detectives solved 100 homicide cases in 2025, clearing 70 of the 84 homicides from that year along with 30 cold cases from prior years, aided in part by a full-time forensic investigative genetic genealogist. The department's oldest cleared case from that batch dated back to 2000. By mid-2025, Columbus police reported a year-to-date homicide solve rate between 75% and 78%, a figure that officials said exceeds the national clearance average by nearly 30 percentage points, per NBC4.
South Linden's Long-Standing Violence Problem
The Columbus Division of Police maintains a Homicide Case Review Unit made up of one sergeant and five detectives tasked with re-evaluating unsolved homicides dating back to the 1950s, according to the City of Columbus. Cases are reopened when new leads surface or when investigators identify solvable factors worth another look. Nationally, the backlog is enormous: the Ohio Attorney General's office cites FBI records showing more than 100,000 cold case homicides have accumulated across the country since 1995, alongside a steady decline in national clearance rates over recent decades.
South Linden itself has long carried a reputation as one of Columbus's higher-crime neighborhoods. Safety assessments cited by Guardian Protection estimate the area's violent crime rate runs roughly 64% to 145% above national benchmarks, with violence concentrated along its older residential corridors. City officials have moved to address that pattern directly: Mayor Andrew J. Ginther announced in March that an 18-month pilot program in South Linden and Milo-Grogan pushed non-fatal shooting clearance rates from 46% to 75% by giving those cases the same investigative resources as homicides, with plans to expand the approach citywide.
How To Submit A Tip
Anyone with information about the deaths of Cody and Russell is asked to contact Columbus police or Crime Stoppers of Central Ohio at 614-461-TIPS. Central Ohio Crime Stoppers distributes more than $35,000 annually in anonymous cash rewards for tips that lead to an arrest or indictment, using a protected coding system designed to keep callers anonymous. Tips can be submitted by phone or through the organization's mobile app.
A decade on, Nevaeh Elizabeth Cody Russell has grown up without the parents who welcomed her less than two weeks before they were killed. For her family, and for the neighborhood that watched the shooting unfold in broad daylight, the case remains exactly what it has been since 2016: open, unresolved, and waiting on someone willing to talk.
