An eighteen-year-old girl was shot dead in her Harlem apartment building early this morning in what is being reported as a case of mistaken identity. Tayshana Murphy, a top-rated basketball standout who played for Murray Bergtraum High, was attempting to outrun a gunman in a hallway on the fourth floor of the Grant Houses at around 4:10 a.m. "They caught her on the fourth floor and they had her at gunpoint and they shot her in her head," her friend told the Daily News. "She was pleading for her life. She was saying, 'No, please I don't have nothing to do with it."

Witnesses believe that her assailant mistook her for a boy who fought with a group of men at a nearby public housing complex, given that she was wearing a hooded sweatshirt similar to the boy's. No arrests have been made, and the investigation is still pending.

Murphy's mother reportedly "kissed the body bag" as it was carried away by authorities. "Back up!" she shouted, "It's my baby." Murphy, who sat out last season due to a knee injury and whose nickname on the court was "Chicken," is described by an ESPN scouting guide as "almost impossible to stay in front of," and her crossover dribble "may be one of the best in the girls' game today." Though she had to leave Bishop Louhglin High last year due to an altercation with another girl, her dream was to be drafted in the WNBA. "That's my goal. I want to be great," she told the paper last year.