Seven months after 33-year-old Diamond Rice was shot and killed in a Walnut Hills apartment, jury selection has begun in the Cincinnati murder trial of her partner, 31-year-old Jasmine Blake. Rice's mother, Wanda Sommonds, is watching from her home in Baltimore, hoping a verdict will finally bring her family closure.
Rice was fatally shot on May Street in Walnut Hills on February 3, 2026, following an argument with Blake, according to FOX19. Cincinnati police officers responded to the shooting on February 2 at an apartment near May Street and Burbank, where Blake called 911 and told dispatchers, “She's gone,” according to WKRC. Rice moved from Baltimore to Cincinnati at age 30.
A Youth Advocate Remembered as a Mentor and Friend
At the time of her death, Rice served as assistant director for Hamilton County Youth Advocate Programs while working toward a Bachelor of Science degree in social work at Northern Kentucky University, according to The Northerner. Sommonds described her daughter to FOX19 as a counselor, teacher, and friend — not just a daughter — and said she seeks justice for Rice as the trial unfolds in Cincinnati.
Rice's path to youth advocacy began long before she arrived in Ohio. She was first introduced to Youth Advocate Programs at age 13 as a court-involved youth in Baltimore, and she went on to transform her own life into a platform for others, eventually representing YAP and serving as a panelist at a U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention session in November 2024, according to The Northerner. Family and friends gathered outside New Shiloh Apostolic Temple in Baltimore on February 7, 2026, for a memorial vigil honoring her memory and calling for accountability, as reported by WJZ-TV.
Self-Defense Claim Sets Up Central Courtroom Fight
Blake was arrested and charged with murder in Rice's death. She appeared in Hamilton County Municipal Court on February 2, 2026, before Judge Trotter Bratton, who set her bond at $750,000, according to The Northerner's reporting. Defense attorneys argued during February court hearings that Blake acted in self-defense while being physically attacked, but prosecutors countered that police found no evidence Rice was armed or acting aggressively.
That dispute will likely sit at the heart of the trial now underway in Cincinnati. Under Ohio law, specifically R.C. 2901.05, once a defendant presents credible evidence of self-defense, the burden shifts entirely to prosecutors, who must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused did not act in self-defense, according to WHIO TV. That legal standard means jurors will have to weigh the couple's private confrontation against a high evidentiary bar before any conviction can stand.
Case Unfolds Amid Rising Domestic Violence Numbers
The shooting comes as domestic violence cases have surged across the region. The total number of reported domestic violence cases in Hamilton County doubled from 2024 to 2025, according to statistics from the Hamilton County Prosecutor's Office cited by Local 12. Statewide, the Ohio Domestic Violence Network reported 157 domestic violence-related fatalities in 2025, a 37% increase from the prior year, and identified Hamilton County as one of Ohio's deadliest counties for intimate partner violence homicides, per testimony submitted to the Ohio House of Representatives.
Sommonds told FOX19 she has been too emotionally overwhelmed to be around Blake and said she hopes the Cincinnati community will stand with her family throughout the trial. The trial is now underway in Cincinnati. For Rice's family, though, the focus now is squarely on the Cincinnati courtroom where a jury will decide what happened inside that May Street apartment on the night she died.
