WBAL-TV 11 journalist David Collins frames it as a story about grief that has turned into a mission: Tina Tunstalle says she is done waiting for answers about who killed her son.
Her son, Tyler Tunstalle, was 21 years old. Collins reports that his family described him as determined, the kind of young man who talked about traveling the world and becoming a millionaire before 25.
That future ended in May, when Tyler was shot while stopped along Hollins Ferry Road near Lansdowne High School. Months later, his mother says the silence from the investigation feels like its own kind of wound.
In Collins’ reporting – both his written story and the video segment – Tina doesn’t sound like someone asking politely. She sounds like someone who feels she has been forced into detective work by default.
“The holy spirit told me my son was in trouble,” Tina Tunstalle told Collins, describing the moment she sensed something was wrong.
She said she started dialing his phone and felt panic hit her body like a physical collapse. “Tyler, I’m coming. Mommy is coming. Hold on, mommy is coming,” she recalled saying as she rushed toward him.
What Happened On Hollins Ferry Road
Collins lays out the basic timeline: Tyler had been on his way home after a quick food run. He pulled his black SUV to the curb on a busy stretch of Hollins Ferry Road.
Tina Tunstalle told Collins that Tyler had his flashers on. She also described details that stick in a mother’s mind forever, like the passenger-side window being rolled down.
Then, the shooting. Collins reports that four bullets pierced the driver’s side window, which was rolled up, and three of those bullets struck Tyler.
What happens next is where the story gets heavier, because Tina says she stayed on the phone and used a locator app to find him fast.
She told Collins she never hung up – not because she thought a phone call could stop a gunshot wound, but because she couldn’t let go of him in that moment.
When she arrived, she says she saw her son move.
“And when I screamed his name, he raised up, and he reached for his mommy,” Tina Tunstalle told Collins. “He reached for me, but police wouldn’t let me come over.”
She describes the scene in a way that makes you picture distance as the enemy. “My baby was laying right there on his left side,” she said, describing police and EMS standing nearby.
“They wasn’t aiding him. They wasn’t helping him,” she added in Collins’ video report, saying she tried to touch his back so he could feel her presence.
This is one of those moments where a family’s memory and an official timeline can clash hard. Tina is describing what she believes she saw – inaction, delay, maybe missed urgency – while investigators haven’t publicly walked the public through what emergency care was provided and when.
Tina believes her son was trying to communicate something important.
“Tyler was trying to tell me something,” she told Collins. “He was trying to tell me something, and they didn’t want me to hear what he had to say.”
Hiring A Private Detective
The part of this story that turns it from tragedy to confrontation is what Tina did next.
Collins reports that she hired a private detective, Michael Brown, because she feels law enforcement progress has stalled.
“I want the truth. I want to know who did this,” she told Collins. Then she asked the question that keeps showing up in her mind: “Why was he laid here to bleed out and die? Why?”
Brown is not presented as a background character in Collins’ reporting. He’s active, opinionated, and carrying paperwork.
Collins describes Brown with a binder full of materials – diagrams, notes, phone and text records – built around Tyler’s last known movements and the scene where he was shot.
Brown’s view, as Collins reports it, is that Tyler’s location on that road isn’t random.
“I think whoever stopped him had the authority to stop you,” Brown told Collins, arguing that Tyler’s “traffic route” didn’t match where he ended up pulled over.
In the video report, Brown goes further, saying Tyler “has no reason to be in this lane because this lane ends,” and that Tyler lived nearby.
That’s an investigative angle that doesn’t accuse anyone by name, but it pushes toward a darker possibility: that Tyler may have been directed, boxed in, or pressured into stopping – rather than pulling over casually.
Whether that theory is right or wrong, it shows why Tina hired outside help. She isn’t looking only for a shooter. She’s looking for an explanation that fits the scene.
Claims Of Missed Evidence And Denied Records
Collins reports that Tina and Brown believe the case contains evidence that should be producing movement, but they say they keep running into walls.
One major point they raise is video.
Brown told Collins he has “discovered that the police say they have no camera evidence,” but he insists cameras exist around the intersection, including one he says is angled toward the location where Tyler was shot.
“There’s a camera right there,” Brown told Collins, repeating that he believes it “should have caught the shooting.”
He also pointed to other cameras that, in his view, could have captured cars traveling through the area, potentially identifying vehicles behind or in front of Tyler.
If that’s true, then the stakes are obvious. In shootings like this, video can mean the difference between a name and a dead end.
But if those cameras exist and don’t record, weren’t functioning, or don’t have the right angle, then a family can end up clinging to “what should be” instead of “what is.” That gap – between what people believe technology must have captured and what investigators say they actually have – creates distrust fast.
Collins also reports another detail that is hard to ignore: police returned Tyler’s vehicle to Tina after two days.
Tina told Collins she found a bullet slug inside the SUV after it was returned. She then had it analyzed.
Brown’s reaction in Collins’ report is blunt: “They didn’t search the car properly.”
He told Collins that one bullet was later analyzed and described it as a 9-millimeter. Brown also said, as Collins reports it, that investigators “swear they have casings.”
Then comes another frustrating barrier: Tina’s family wanted to review the autopsy report, and Collins reports that request has been denied.
Brown argued to Collins that an autopsy could help answer basic questions, like the angle of the shots.
He also points to physical logic – how casings eject, where they land – as a way of challenging the narrative the family says they’re being told.
“Casings don’t spin forward, they spin backward,” Brown told Collins, adding that if the shooting occurred the way the family understands it, casings might be expected in certain places.
This is where my own reaction is pretty simple: when families feel shut out of basic records – bodycam video, autopsy details, clear explanations – some of them don’t calm down. They escalate. They hire help. They start doing their own forensics. They go looking for proof that they were right to be suspicious.
And even if the investigation is being handled properly behind the scenes, that lack of visibility can still destroy trust. Silence doesn’t feel neutral to a grieving parent. It feels like abandonment.
Faith, Forgiveness, And A Demand For Justice
Collins notes that Tyler wasn’t only a shooting victim in a file. He was a person with plans, and he was also a barber who made an inspirational video reflecting strong religious belief.
In the video Collins shared, Tyler says, “God will never fail you. Trust me when I tell you that. God will never fail you.”
That line hits differently in the context of the story, because Tina says she has chosen to forgive the person responsible.
“Tyler would want me to forgive,” she told Collins. “It’s not saying I don’t want justice, because I do.”
Forgiveness in this context doesn’t sound like closing the book. It sounds like a way to keep her heart intact while still fighting for accountability.
Police Response And A Family Still Waiting
Collins reports that Baltimore County police responded to WBAL-TV 11’s inquiry by saying the investigation is ongoing.
Police also urged anyone with information to call them at 410-887-4636, according to Collins’ report.
That’s the official posture: ongoing case, request for tips, no public play-by-play.
But Tina Tunstalle’s posture is different. She is measuring “ongoing” in months and holidays missed, in an empty seat at home, in a phone call she never hung up.
This is what makes the story linger after the headline. A homicide case isn’t only about evidence and suspects. It’s also about whether the people left behind believe the system is working for them – or whether they feel like they’ve been pushed outside the door, forced to chase the truth on their own.
Raised in a small Arizona town, Kevin grew up surrounded by rugged desert landscapes and a family of hunters. His background in competitive shooting and firearms training has made him an authority on self-defense and gun safety. A certified firearms instructor, Kevin teaches others how to properly handle and maintain their weapons, whether for hunting, home defense, or survival situations. His writing focuses on responsible gun ownership, marksmanship, and the role of firearms in personal preparedness.
