And while Palma's family is waiting for his postmortem to be completed, the Banner family has had a weight lifted off their shoulders after 33-year-old Tanesha Banner seems to be making a remarkable recovery. Banner survived a shooting to the head last week Sunday while she was in a vehicle heading home from Burrell Boom to Double Head Cabbage.
And while she'd spent over a week in a coma, tonight we can tell you that she is alive, awake, and even breathing on her own - as well as talking to her family! Her aunt told us, quote, "Tanesha's progress is unbelievable but we are a praying family... she is seeing from both eyes, hearing, [and] feeling. [She] just complains that she feels like she's just learning to walk... she can only eat liquid food like ensure, etcetera. She remembers everything [on] the night of the shooting." End quote.
And today, she also underwent a second, life-saving surgery. Her aunt explained to us that while she was in a coma, she had internal hemorrhaging and edema so the surgeon removed a part of her skull and placed it under the flesh in her abdomen area to allow for decompression of the brain while the swelling goes down. Though her brain is still a bit swollen, the surgeon replaced the portion of the skull this morning, and the surgery was a success.
It's fantastic news for this family, who have been at her bedside since she was shot, and they say they're thankful that she is still alive.
Meanwhile, her shooter, Veris Ventura, was killed in self defense by the Coast Guardsman who was in the vehicle with Banner. Ventura's accomplice - who had driven him to the hospital and pushed his body out of the red SUV - has still not been captured.
