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'Love you mommy' were the last words she said to her mother

A mother came home and found her teen daughter dead.

Three years after it happened, Katara Hamm is still haunted by it.

It was Jan. 12, 2016.

Hamm arrived home and found her teenage daughter, Randisha Love, dead. The 17-year-old had been shot five times in the face and torso.

There were no obvious motives for the murder. Nothing was taken from the home. The teen hadn't been sexually assaulted. There were no signs of forced entry into the home. 

On Tuesday, Hamm issued a new plea for information in the case.

"They ripped my soul out of my body," Hamm said. "I think every moment of my child. And I just want to know - why did they do that to my baby? Why - just why? She didn't deserve that. They robbed the world of getting to know Randisha." 

Love had just turned 17 and was a junior at Westlake High when her life was cut short. She was the second oldest of four children and her mother’s only daughter. She and her family had just moved with her grandparents in College Park—that meant a new school, new neighbors and new friends for Love and her two of her three brothers, one of whom was already in college. 

Around 4:30 p.m. on the day of her death, Love called her mother to let her know that she was home from school. They talked for a few minutes. 

"We were laughing with each other, and I'm happy. It was a laughing conversation," she said. "I had bought her a burger or something to eat when she got out of school the next day, but my son ate it and she was like, 'I'm gonna get him,' and that's what we were laughed about ... because he would always eat her stuff."

The call ended with, "Love you, mommy."

"I love you, too," Hamm remembered saying into her phone.

Hamm got off of work around 7:30 p.m. and went to pick her son up from a basketball game. They stopped by Wendy's for dinner. 

She called Love, but got no answer. 

Around 9 p.m., they pulled into the driveway. 

"Everything seemed OK," Hamm remembered. 

As she walked into the home, she called out for Love.

"I'm calling her name, calling her name—and he was looking at me with this blank stare. He was like, 'Mom, she right there.' And I looked down, and, literally had I taken another step or two, I would've tripped over her,” Hamm vividly recalled.

Love was face down in a pool of blood in the front hallway - just steps inside the door.

“I looked down, and I see my baby,” she said.

There wasn't a lot for investigators to follow.

"There are no witnesses, so, all we know is, that the mom came home and found Randisha Love lying in the foyer of the home. And, we learned she sustained and died from multiple gunshot wounds,"  Fulton County Lt. Roger Peace told 11Alive investigative reporter Jessica Noll last year.

RELATED: GONE COLD | Justice for Love: A mother’s relentless pursuit to find her daughter’s killer

According to Peace, her phone records indicate that Love made two phone calls that day. One to her mom when she left her house and another to her mom when she was home.

“That would tell me that was somebody, who basically, kept to themselves," he concluded.

The subdivision she was living in with her mom, brothers and grandparents, wasn't a high-crime area, the investigator confirmed.

No neighbors recalled hearing any gunshots that day.

"We believe this happened during the time frame when most people would still be at work," the investigator said.

The medical examiner’s autopsy report showed that at least three medium-caliber, yellow-metal bullets were recovered from Love’s body.

"It's still unknown of what the motive may have been or what transpired," Peace said. "Either she opened the door for somebody she knew from school or the neighborhood, or it was somebody who gained entrance to the house—either she didn't lock the front door, or she opened the door and let them in, or she opened the door and they forced entry." 

Investigators said they're still following a few leads in the case. They'd like to get more from the public - specifically 11th and 12th grade students at Westlake High School who may have heard rumors or had suspicions about what might have been happening around that time.

Anyone with information on the case is asked to call Fulton County Police at 404-613-6529.

This story was previously featured on Gone Cold, an ongoing series where 11Alive Journalist Jessica Noll investigates some of the most infamous and lesser-known cold cases in Georgia. She's digging for answers for the still-grieving families who long for them, and for the victims who have never found their justice. 

Jessica Noll a multimedia journalist, who focuses on in-depth, investigative crime/justice reports for 11Alive's digital platforms has followed this case.. Follow her on Twitter @JNJournalist and like her on Facebook to keep up with her latest work. If you have a tip or story idea, email her at jnoll@11Alive.com or call, text at (404) 664-3634.

Join our "Gone Cold" Facebook group and join our discussions about cases like these, athttps://www.facebook.com/groups/gonecold/.

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