Woman killed while confronting car burglars in SE Houston
HOUSTON (KTRK) -- A 22-year-old woman is dead, shot by car burglars at the Tropicana Apartments on Kingsway Drive in southeast Houston.
HPD homicide has identified the victim as Carla Marizol Carias. Detectives say Carias was not an intended target, but was shot once by one of the burglars in a getaway car.
She was visiting her boyfriend who lives at the complex with his father.
Police say it was around midnight Wednesday morning, when the father and son heard someone breaking into Carias' car.
They went outside to see what was going on and that's when the two burglars got in their car and took off.
As they were driving away, investigators say one of them leaned out a window and fired one shot at the father, son and son's girlfriend.
The shot hit Carias and she was rushed to the hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
Carla's mother, Yolanda Avilez, said Carla's boyfriend called her at 1:30am and told her Carla had been taken to Memorial Hermann's emergency room. In Spanish, Avilez said she and her husband were brought into a room and doctors told her Carla had died because a bullet hit her in the heart.
"I want justice. I hope there is justice but I know the best justice is the Lord. I know the best justice is the Lord. I know the law can find them but the Lord will make justice," said Avilez. "Always. I'll miss her always because she's half of my life. It's half of my life gone. She's not with me anymore. It's incomparable pain. I don't wish it upon anybody. I don't wish it to any mother. It's the hardest thing there is for a mother to lose a kid."
Avilez said her daughter is dead all because criminals wanted to steal her car. She said Carla worked two jobs to buy the car she wanted. She pleaded for anyone with information to come forward and report them to Houston police.
"That's my wish. That they find them. They catch them. That they catch them so they're not hurting other people," said Avilez. "So that they're not hurting innocent people. People that fighting for their livelihood. People who are working hard and hot hurting each other."
Police don't have a good description of the two car burglars other than they are black males and they were in a dark-colored four-door sedan.
"We are still in the process of trying to gather as much info as possible. This is definitely a senseless homicide and we want to try and get the suspects as soon as possible," said Detective Mandy Arroyo with the Houston Police Department.
Investigators believe it's likely they've been in this neighborhood before. There have been several car burglaries in the area recently.
