'Not my time:' Woman shot in the face in SE Houston shares survival story, pleas to find suspect

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- Houston police are looking for more information on who shot a mother in the face in the city's south side last week.

The shooting happened just after 11 p.m. on Dec. 18 on Thrush Drive.

Speaking only with ABC13, 23-year-old Marivel Meza is now home from the hospital and recovering. She said that when she woke up after being shot, doctors called her a warrior - telling her she was going to make it.

Meza says she's grateful to be alive and that her daughter, who was in the truck with her that night, was unharmed.

"That bullet could have hit me in the head, the heart, anywhere, but it was God. It was not my time," Meza said.

Meza says she was at Kroger on Telephone Road before she drove less than five minutes away, pulled into a loved one's home on Thrush Drive, and was gunned down by a man she'd never seen before.

Due to the circumstances, she believes she was followed.

She told ABC13 she was in that neighborhood to pick up her mom. It's an area that her family has lived in since she was a young girl. She says nothing like this has happened to any of them before.

"A car passed by. It came back (and) parked near the neighbor's house. He got off, and I shouted to my mom that a male was coming, and I tried to lock the truck and leave," Meza recalled.

She says her mother hid. Meza says the man told her to get out of the truck and believes he was trying to steal it, which she wasn't going to let happen since her young daughter was also in the truck.

"It was my daughter, for me. I was going to go crazy without her," Meza said as she recounted the scary encounter.

She says the man shot her through the truck window.

"A big point of view for life. Now, I'm not scared because I know I don't have problems with (anybody)," Meza said.

Meza says she wants people in the neighborhood to share their surveillance video with law enforcement to find whoever did this to her so they don't do this to anyone else.

"I just want justice - to find whoever did it. I'm going to get better. God is not going to leave me," Meza said.

Houston police say if you have any information on the case, you're asked to call the HPD Major Assaults & Family Violence Division at 713-308-8800 or speak anonymously to Crime Stoppers at 713-222-TIPS.

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