Shooting Is Second Brush With Tragedy Davis Clan Was Rocked By A Murder-Suicide Two Years Ago

Tragedy again hit a large Spokane family that was jolted two years ago by a murder-suicide that left a 7-year-old boy and his father dead.

This time, the extended family of Reginald and Geraldine Davis is dealing with the murder of their granddaughter, Kendra Grantham.

The 16-year-old died Wednesday when bullets from a semiautomatic assault rifle slammed into the back of her head as she sat on a porch about a dozen blocks from her grandparents’ home.

Kendra’s friend, Cindy Buffin, is tentatively identified as the second victim of what police say was a gang-related shooting in a Hillyard neighborhood.

Police are looking at retaliation as a possible motive.

“It happened again, it’s hell, and we just can’t believe it,” said Reginald Davis Sr., 70, the patriarch of the family.

“I saw Kendra yesterday (Tuesday) and she was in great spirits, just full of life - and now this,” he said.

Davis comforted the girl’s mother, Mabel Grantham, who couldn’t talk about losing her second child.

Grantham’s ex-husband, Gregory Davis, killed himself and their 7-year-old son in March 1993 by sealing himself and the boy in a garage at 217 E. Empire with the car running.

The murder-suicide came after a distraught Davis lost custody of Josh after Mable Grantham filed for a divorce, granted in December 1992.

The Davis family is an extended family of 17 children, united when Reginald and Geraldine Davis married in 1973.

Three of Davis’ children married three of Geraldine’s children, blurring the relationships even more. Greg Davis paved the way when he married Mable Grantham - Geraldine’s daughter - in 1988.

Reginald Davis said his granddaughter attended Shadle Park and Rogers high schools briefly during the past school year, but dropped out.

“She was a bright girl, and just wanted to find a job and make a go of it,” he said.

She lived with her grandparents and got by on a portion of child support sent to her mother by her father, who lives in California, Davis said.

The teenager worked for a few months earlier this year at a Taco Time at Division and Queen, where co-workers described her as friendly and outgoing.”She had some friends who were into the gang thing,” said one young friend of the victim who didn’t want to be identified.

, DataTimes