The sister of the 20-year-old woman who was killed in a drive-by shooting in La Jolla Sunday spoke candidly with NBC 7 about her sister’s life and the moment when she heard the horrifying news.
Nina Silver was one of four people shot while standing outside of a house party on Cuvier Street at 12:30 a.m., police said. Silver later died at the hospital, and the three other victims, men aged 19 to 23, survived.
Just one day after learning about her sister’s death, Ali White told NBC 7 this was “not something we would’ve expected from her.”
“I’m hoping – all of us are – that it was somebody making a really bad choice, and she was at the wrong place at the wrong time,” White said. “It’s really hard to picture that being the way she would go because she didn’t deserve that – nobody does.”
Silver had just turned 20 in April, her sister said, and had hopes to move to New York with her mom and work toward a degree in nursing. White said she had “big plans.”
“She’s my little – my little baby, you know. She followed me everywhere when she was little and everything. She just wanted to be like me. I work in healthcare, and she wanted to work in healthcare,” White said. “She was ready to move on and make new things for herself.”
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Silver graduated from Poway High School in 2017 where she was voted “Most Distinct Laugh” in her yearbook, the Poway Unified School District confirmed.
“She did have a voracious laugh,” White said. “She was beautiful – on the outside and the inside.”
White said her sister had a “positive soul,” and people would often come to her with their problems because she had “a really good heart.”
“She was probably the reason our family stayed together so much,” White told NBC 7. “She pulled us all in when we were having our personal troubles. She was a wonderful aunt to my daughters, and I know that they are going to miss her a whole lot.”
White said she was asleep while her sister was shot to death.
“I didn’t know she was out. I got woken up from sleep to find out she’d been shot,” White said.
White said she blames the possible shooter or shooters, which she called “these kids,” and “how we are raising them to value life and themselves and their mental health – how they are able to handle confrontations and problems with others.”
As for the three other victims, White said she hoped they will be OK.
“I hope that they are removing themselves from these kinds of situations too of being in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong people, so that other families don’t have to go through this,” she said.
White told NBC 7 there were videos from the shooting on Sunday.
“Yeah, there’s videos, and it needs to go to police and not social media,” she said. “I don’t want anything negative of her like that because it’s not fair to remember her that way. … She deserves to be remembered for how bright she was.”
Silver’s sister created a GoFundMe page to raise money and help cover the cost of funeral services.
The page said, “Our beautiful Nina's life was taken from her at the tender age of 20. We hope for justice as the police pursue the man who robbed her of her future, who robbed her from her loving family, who robbed the world of such a radiant soul.”
White said her sister loved the beach and the ocean, music, and being around family.
“I hope if anybody does know that they do come out and say something,” White said. “Not to hide in the shadows like a coward. She deserves to have the justice for that.”
Anyone with information regarding this incident is asked to call the Homicide Unit at (619) 531-2293 or Crime Stoppers at (888) 580-8477.
