BIRMINGHAM, Alabama - When Neketa Shepherd left her Birmingham home to go to Hoover to watch the Iron Bowl at a party, she never dreamed it would be the end to one of the most important relationships in her life.

Hours later, shortly after Alabama fell to Auburn, Neketa Shepherd was holding her sister in her arms, putting pressure on gunshots wounds that had ripped through Michelle Shepherd's chest, stomach and side. "My sister took her last breath in my arms,'' said 31-year-old Neketa Shepherd. "I heard her take her last breath and I knew she was gone."

The shooting happened about 7 p.m. Saturday at the Summerchase at Riverchase apartments. Police said Michelle Shepherd and another woman got into an argument shortly after the game ended. That argument started inside, but spilled over into the parking lot.

Hoover Police Chief Nick Derzis said the argument turned physical and both women ended up on the ground. The other woman, whose name hasn't been released, pulled a small caliber handgun and shot Michelle Shepherd. The 36-year-old victim was pronounced dead on the scene. The case will be presented to the Shelby County Coroner's Office Monday to determine whether charges will be filed.

Neketa Shepherd said it didn't quite happen as police have said. Michelle Shepherd was an Alabama fan, but even more than Alabama, she loved The Miami Heat. After the game ended, she and her sister were joking around, not about Alabama's loss, but about the Miami Heat. The woman, Neketa Shepherd said, apparently took their joking the wrong way.

"I was saying I wasn't even mad (about the loss). Like when The Heat lost in game four, I was sick to my stomach,'' Neketa Shepherd said. "She started cursing. Her friends said she always did that when she got drunk and they took her outside."

Since the game had ended and a card game was about to begin, the Shepherd sisters decided to head home. She said neither she nor her sister drink.

The woman was still outside, and was still angry. "She was saying she was going to beat us up,'' Neketa Shepherd said. "Somebody was saying, 'they don't care about Alabama.'''

They got into their car to leave, but were blocked by people standing in the parking lot. Neketa Shepherd said they were concerned about hitting someone, so she and her sister got out of the car and asked them to move out of the way. They talked to some friends, and the next thing they knew, gunfire rang out.

"She just started shooting. I heard five shots,'' Neketa Shepherd said. "She was like 10 feet away. My sister never touched her, and she never touched my sister. They never had words."

Neketa Shepherd said she ran to her sister, screaming, "They shot her. They shot her." She and another woman held her and tried to stop the bleeding until paramedics arrived. "I was telling her, 'Don't leave me. Don't leave the kids. I need you,''' she said. "They couldn't bring her back.''

Neketa Shepherd said her sister was a wonderful mother to three children; two boys and one girl, ages 9, 7 and 4. Her children were most important to her, but she also devoted her life to helping others.

As the oldest of five children, she spent much of her time helping to raise her younger siblings while their mother worked while growing up in Demopolis. . "Michelle was a mother figure to us a lot of times,'' Neketa Shepherd said. "We all looked up to her. If anything was to go wrong, we looked to Michelle to make it right."

When Michelle Shepherd went off to college, first Wallace State and then Lawson, she remained a caregiver for her brothers and sister. "She was always buying me clothes, because with five kids, my mom couldn't always get us everything we wanted,'' Neketa Shepherd said. "And when I was playing basketball in high school, she came back to go to every one of my games. She was always there for us."

Her giving nature carried over into her work. Both of the Shepherd sisters worked for the Dannon Project. Michelle Shepherd was a senior case manager to at-risk youth, and young parents ages 17 - 24, said Kerri Pruitt, executive director of the Dannon Project. "She had a way with this population that was so encouraging for them to learn to live their lives around,'' Pruitt said. "She was a great organizer, extremely smart, very supportive of their reaching their career and educational goals. We have a new class starting tomorrow that she had already gotten everything set up for them, 17 of them to be exact."

"We are at a huge loss and scrambling to keep moving forward tomorrow,'' Pruitt said. "More than anything, she would have wanted that. She loved, loved , loved her kids and her sister more than life itself. She would do anything for them. This world lost a great innovator for the youth in this community."

Neketa Shepherd said she's not sure how she will go on. "I traveled all over the word while I was in the Navy, and I saw that nobody was closer than me and my sister,'' she said.

She said her niece and nephews spent the weekend with their father, and have not yet been told of their mother's death. "He said he didn't know how to tell them, so I am going to, probably Monday or Tuesday,'' Neketa Shepherd said. "I will tell them she is in Heaven. What else can you say?"

She said the family is reeling. "We all feel like we lost our world,'' she said. "I want her legacy to live on. And I want justice."