Homicide victim sought fresh start in Ozarks - News-Leader.com

One of the last times that Pristina Tyner talked to her mother, she said she wanted to come back home.

On Friday, Charlona Moore returned to North Carolina with her daughter's ashes. Tyner died Sunday night after being shot two days before at a Springfield hotel. Terry D. Morrison, 48, has been charged with first-degree murder and armed criminal action.

"All I can say is I'm really, really going to miss her," Moore said. "It's just been very hard."

Tyner's uncle and aunt, Robert and Pam Roberts of Galena, said Tyner wanted a change in her life when she moved to Missouri in July. She briefly lived with them before getting a job cleaning rooms at a Branson-area hotel.

"Tina was a good-hearted person," Pam Roberts said.

Records show she had also had brushes with the law. She served about four months in a North Carolina prison in 2004 for breaking and entering. She was on probation in Missouri when she died. The Missouri case was a third-degree assault in July in Stone County. Details on the case weren't available late Friday.

Christian Childers of Springfield said he met Tyner on an online site called Tagged. A profile for Pristina T. on the site lists her interests as "friends, dating, serious relationship."

Her favorite movie was "Pretty Woman," the 1990 romantic comedy starring Richard Gere and Julia Roberts. She listed her best features as her eyes and thighs and her dream as "to be the best mother I can be."

"I love camping, concerts, hanging out on the lake and anything that includes having fun," Pristina wrote.

Childers said Tyner sent him pictures and they met once after she moved to Missouri. He said they went for a long ride on his motorcycle.

"She had this wonderful bubbly personality," Childers said. "The 'always wanting to do something, always wanting to do something.' Not wanting to sit still."

Relatives said Tyner had a boyfriend she met in Missouri. The uncle, Robert Roberts, said the only time he met him was at the hospital.

Moore said she plans to give Tyner's ashes to her granddaughter, Shawna Tyner, a high school senior in North Carolina who was Tyner's only child. Relatives are asking that donations in memory of Tyner be sent to a college fund that is being set up for Shawna. The family can be reached through White Oak Family Worship Center in North Carolina, where a memorial service is planned at 3 p.m. Oct. 8.