grant housing project
Tayshana Murphy, a promising, young girls basketball star, was shot dead Sunday morning in New York in what appears to be a case of mistaken identity. NYC.gov

Top girls basketball prospect Tayshana Murphy was gunned down in her Harlem apartment on Sunday in an incident family members say is a case of mistaken identity.

A gunman snuffed out the 18 year old's life around 4 a.m. inside the hallway of the Grant Houses, a public housing project in Morningside Heights, Manhattan, as she tried to outrun him on the fourth floor.

There has been no arrest as of Sunday.

She was pleading for her life, friend Teka Taylor, 22, who was with Murphy when the incident happened, told the New York Daily News. She was saying 'No, please, I don't have nothing to do with it.'

The New York Times reported a law enforcement official has said the shooting appears to be in retaliation for an assault that took place earlier the day Murphy was killed. But officials are unsure if Murphy played a role in that earlier assault.

The Daily News reported that Murphy was wearing a hooded sweatshirt at a party with friends from her project when she was chased by the gunman. Those who were at the party said Murphy's assailant had mistaken her for a boy who was wearing the same sweatshirt.

Murphy, recently started her senior year at Murry Bergtraum High School for Business Careers on a basketball scholarship. Several colleges were reportedly actively recruiting her.

The 5-foot-6 senior was known on the courts by her nickname Chicken, and was considered one of the top guard prospects in the nation, according to Yahoo! Sports.

Murphy has plans to use her basketball talents to improve her future and help her family leave the projects, according to Yahoo! Sports.

But she never made it out.

She said, 'Mom, I'm going to get you out of the projects,' Murphy's mother Tephanie Holston told the media. She loved basketball, she lived and breathed basketball.

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