OPA-LOCKA

As mourners gathered to remember 14-year-old Natasha Calixte, homicide detectives passed out fliers hoping to generate leads.

Posted on Fri, Jan. 04, 2008

BY DAVID OVALLE

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Draped in a sleeved, lacy peach dress, pearl necklace and earrings and wearing minimal makeup, Natasha Calixte looked her age. Fourteen.

She lay in a white metal casket Thursday topped with 20 white carnations. Her father's ashes rested in an urn at her feet.

''It doesn't feel like she's dead right now,'' said friend Pauline Salomon, 15, furrowing her brow at Natasha's waxy hands folded over a carnation.

But Natasha's life ended in a very grown-up way.

An unknown gunman shot her dead as she drove a stolen car on Christmas Eve in North Miami-Dade. On Thursday, mourners -- mostly disbelieving teenagers -- visited her body during a service at Hadley's Funeral Home in Opa-locka. [More]