People packed East Percy Street Christian Church on Saturday afternoon to say goodbye to Sharon Renae Hunt.
Friends and family poured into the sanctuary, lined the aisles and clustered in the tiny foyer to be a part of the funeral service.
"Do not grieve like those who have no hope," said Elder Patricia Parker.
Hunt, 39, was shot and killed Dec. 2 in the McLaurin Street Park area. Authorities have connected her death with the fatal shooting of Johnathon McCoy, 19.
Hunt's son, Rordera, 16, remains at the Leflore County Jail, accused of McCoy's murder.
Police have yet to make an arrest in connection with Hunt's death.
Rordera was not present at the funeral.
Law enforcement officials wouldn't say if the teenager was allowed private time with his mother's body before the funeral.
Workers from Great Southern Funeral Home brought Hunt's body to the church more than an hour before the funeral so people in the community could pay their last respects.
Some mourners came and left quietly. Other stayed in the sanctuary to await the funeral.
Spontaneous bursts of sobbing overtook the family as they listened to Parker's eulogy.
Hunt was a homemaker. She attended Greenwood High School and Amanda Elzy High School.
Ushers fanned the mourners from the rising heat generated by the crowd in the church.
An unidentified friend of Hunt's rose from the choir and comforted the family during the expressions portion of the ceremony.
"It's hard now, but God knows best," he said.
Your mother loved you all very much, he told Hunt's children.
Her children, Marcus, Rodera, Bianca, Simone and Ashley, wrote a personal note in the service bulletin:
"Although it's hard for us to let you go, we will try to be strong as you have been for us through the years. Strong as the love that kept you with us. Strong as the love that let you leave us. We will miss you mama."
Parker preached to the gathered mourners about their own mortality. It is time to consider your final destination, she said. "This is only a bus stop on the way to our eternal home."
After a brief graveside prayer, members of the family and friends gathered at the KFC Building on U.S. Highway 49 for a repast.
The funeral was the second within three days of people who were killed in the McLaurin Street area.
Authorities aren't releasing any information about the two cases, although they have claimed that the two shootings were related.
The family and friends of McCoy's buried him Thursday, a week to the day after he was murdered.
"We express our condolences to the family of Sharon Hunt," said Leflore County Supervisor Larry "Kite" Johnson, a spokesman for McCoy's family. "We are saddened by her family's loss, just as we know they are saddened by ours."
