Postal workers mourn loss of pregnant co-worker gunned down on Detroit's west side

Bionka Lyons, 21, was seven months pregnant

DETROIT – Workers at the post office in Detroit are mourning the loss of their pregnant co-worker Thursday morning who was shot and killed on Detroit's west side.

Bionka Lyons, 21, of Detroit, was killed Wednesday at about 11 p.m. outside her parent’s home on Crocuslawn Street. Her unborn child did not survive.

“It’s all everyone has been talking about today because she was just so young,” USPS employee Sherrie Coleman said. “I’m a mother and it makes me think of my own and I just can’t imagine what the family is going through.”

Lyons was shot five times.

Her parents heard the shots and found her in the street near her vehicle. She was rushed to the hospital. The baby died soon after they arrived at the emergency room. Lyons died at about 2 a.m. She was seven months pregnant.

Lyons was expecting to give birth to a boy – her first child.

Police said a man ran up to her as she was getting out of her car and was gunned down. A K9 unit tracked a scent in the neighborhood near West Chicago and Wyoming Avenue, but the dogs lost the scent at the corner of the street.

Her vehicle was towed from the scene as evidence.

Lyons worked for the U.S. Postal Service. She was a clerk post office in downtown Detroit on Fort Street. A heartbroken co-worker was on the scene after he heard the about the shooting.

“I’ve never heard anybody say a bad word about Bionka,” Lee Straughter said. “We we’re just co-workers so we only interact for about eight hours a day but I’ve never heard anybody ever have a complaint, whether it was a co-worker, a supervisor, a manager. Everybody loved Bionka.”

Lee said Lyons was upbeat and that he can’t imagine a motive for the killing but said “it had to be personal.”

Employees who didn’t know Bionka said they still feel like they lost a member of their post office family.
“We’re one big happy family here. We look out for each other when we can and this is just devastating,” USPS employee John Olden said. “Whenever I’ve worked with her and seen her in the lobby she always had a smile on her face. She was a beautiful person.”

USPS said their thoughts and prayers go out to the families and will be providing grief counseling at the local branches that need it.

No arrests have been made.

Stay with Local 4 and ClickonDetroit.com for updates to this developing story.