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Rosalyn Hickmon rushed to the Cully neighborhood of northeastern Portland last Wednesday after receiving a call informing her that her daughter may have died in a shooting.
When she arrived, she found her apartment locked down, and the police on the scene refused to let her inside.
“I just want confirmation (that’s her),” Hickmon, 56, told detectives outside the unit.
“Can you look at my face and tell me if the woman there looks like me?” she pleaded.
The look on the detective’s face provided confirmation.
Officers told Hickmon that the woman who was shot inside the apartment wore a reddish-blonde wig.
“It was her birthday wig,” Hickmon said.
Hickmon’s eldest daughter, Charlene Bieber, just turned 35 on October 27th.
She died six days later, on November 2nd. Her death was ruled her 86th murder in Portland in 2022.
Her longtime boyfriend, Major Leon Hudson Jr., was also shot in the apartment, Hickmon said.
Bieber and her siblings were raised in the Portland area after the family moved from Texas. He used to babysit the little girl while Hickmon was at work, holding Beaver until her mother left home and returned.
He nicknamed Charlene “Chu Chu”.
Their bond was so strong that after his death in 2005, she got a tattoo next to the Dallas Cowboys star that read “RIP Daddy” for his favorite football team. rice field.
Even as a girl, Charlene was dogmatic and feisty, according to Hickmon. “She said Charlene was always her boss,” her mother said.
Shirlene developed a passion for styling hair. According to her mother, she had a “knack” for knitting any design, so she attended cosmetology school. She made wigs and weaves with her hands.
The last text she sent her mother included a selfie wearing a birthday wig.
Bieber helped raise Hudson’s two oldest children, who are teenagers, while he struggled with health problems over the past few years, Hickmon said. I was in and out of the hospital repeatedly.
The experience had a life-changing impact on her. She was thinking of going back to school to get her nursing degree, her mother said.
“She said, ‘I can be a better nurse myself than the doctor did for me,'” Hickmon recalled with a laugh.
Charlene spoke with her mother and siblings on the phone almost every day. She dropped out of high school to support her family. She later obtained her GED.
Charlene’s brother, Christopher Bieber, said he misses his sister’s smiles and giggles. rice field.
Christopher Bieber said she could playfully insult you. .
Charlene Bieber, 35, was shot dead in her Northeast Portland apartment on November 2nd. Police are investigating her death as a homicide.
She was also a master of fashion and had her own style, her family said.
Bieber liked to dress up and be the center of attention, making people “stop and look,” her mother said. This included wearing dangerously high heels.
“He was the only person we knew who could walk in those heels,” Hickmon said.
Shirlene was a loving aunt to many of her nieces and nephews, who called her “Boom Boom”. The family plans to start group therapy to help the children process their grief.
On the day Bieber died, Hickmon and Charlene’s sister John Tay invited Bieber to a nail salon. Charlene, who said her mother had a “wicked sense of humor,” told her mother, “I need to get my hobbit feet in order too.” However, she was not feeling well that day and rested at home.
“She’s the last person we think will be the victim of gun violence,” Hickmon said. “Charlene thought only of herself.”
The Portland Police Department has released few details about the shooting, citing an open investigation. Police soon arrived at 4612 Northeast Lombard Street after other residents of the apartment complex called 911 for her.
Hickmon said Hudson was shot five times. It appears that Bieber may have been hit by a gunshot aimed at his boyfriend.
With the death of his daughter, Hickmon said he was planning to leave Oregon.
Gun violence in Portland is “so normalizing… it’s ridiculous,” Hickmon said. “Life has no value anymore. Growing up, we always worried about black men, but now we worry about black women too. You don’t seem safe at home.”
“Check in with your family,” she added. “Tomorrow is not promised.”
– Savannah Edens; seadens@oregonian.com503-221-6651; @savannaheadens
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