San Antonio – Jesus Vega says his sister Lucia Mendoza was very outgoing and loved by everyone who got to know her.
“I’m getting text messages and calls from people that I went to elementary middle school with and they all knew my sister and they’re all in disbelief that this happened to us,” he said.
On Friday, he said Mendoza and her two daughters were coming home from a day of shopping when someone opened fire on their vehicle in the 2800 block of IH-35 North.
Vega says Mendoza was shot in the head and died on her way to the hospital. Her 14-year old daughter Kimberly had a bullet go through her shoulder and another grazed her neck.
Her 7-year old daughter Alexa was not hurt but witnessed the shooting and started to call family members for help.
“She was like ‘help, help! Mommy needs help! Sister too! They need help,’” he recalls. “She was scared. Now she knows she basically saw her mom pass away in front of her.”
Police are looking for a brown or tan colored GMC, Yukon suburban type vehicle. They are reaching out to businesses along the frontage road to see if cameras can tell them what happened.
Vega said they were turning into the Sutton Oaks Apartments where they lived when police say it appears the victims crashed into the fence of the apartments as she tried to get away from the gunfire. They discovered five bullet holes on the car.
“What my 7-year-old niece told me was horrendous,” Vega said. “She said, ‘this dark-colored chubby man just started shooting at us, and he had so much hate in his eyes.’”
Mendoza is one of four siblings. She leaves behind her parents and two daughters. She was a janitor at Trinity University.