Cedar Rapids man accused in fatal shooting of 15-year-old girl found in crashed car in July 2021

CEDAR RAPIDS — A 19-year-old Cedar Rapids man has been arrested and accused in the July shooting death of 15-year-old Tyliyah L. Whitis in Cedar Rapids.

Marshawn Rome Jackson was arrested Friday on charges of first-degree murder, intimidation with a weapon and being a felon in possession of a firearm, according to Cedar Rapids police.

His initial appearance on those charges will be Saturday morning in Linn County District Court.

Jackson was in the Linn County Jail on unrelated charges — operating a vehicle without owner’s consent, assault on persons in certain occupations and revocation of parole — when he was arrested.

Whitis was found dead in the driver’s seat of a crashed car the morning of July 21 at the Hawthorne Hills Apartment Complex in the 2200 block of C Street SW. The state medical examiner determined Whitis had died of a gunshot wound to the chest and ruled her death a homicide.

Whitis, of Peoria, Ill., was staying with her sister, T’yanna Nesby, in Cedar Rapids. Nesby found out her sister had been shot when she reported her car was missing that morning.

Whitis attended Harrison Elementary School in Cedar Rapids from second to fifth grades — from December 2013 to June 2017 — and started sixth grade at Roosevelt Middle School in 2017 before moving with her mother to Peoria.

According to Nesby, Whitis was a straight-A student who played basketball, worked two jobs and aspired to own her own business.

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