Bullet Brings Young Life to a Tragic End

It is a neighborhood where people barricade themselves behind barred windows and doors, where homeowners and thugs alike own handguns, for different reasons.

It is a neighborhood where dreams are born, and die.

Ten-year-old Sonia Cano’s dream of becoming a ballerina and escaping the clutches of poverty ended abruptly Saturday in a Barrio Logan alley, when a bullet fired by a backyard target-shooter went awry and hit her in the chest.

San Diego police said that Sonia was shot by Jose Maria Ruiz-Maldonado, 45, who was target shooting in his backyard with a newly purchased .38-caliber automatic pistol.

Sonia, a fifth-grader at Sherman Elementary School, where her favorite subjects were math and spelling, will be buried today.

Ruiz, who was arrested on suspicion of murder, is to be arraigned today at the same time that a Mass will be said for the child at Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church. The child’s tragic and unexpected death shocked her close-knit family and left her mother worried about paying for her daughter’s burial expenses.

On Tuesday, Maria Villanueva’s face still had a disbelieving look, as she nervously prepared to go view her daughter’s body at a local funeral home for the first time since the shooting. The single mother held 18-month-old Rafael in her arms, and the baby’s occasional somber cry echoed the grief that prevailed inside the modest home.

“The neighbors told me that she cried out for me when she was shot, but the police wouldn’t let me get near her. . . . They made me come back and get a picture of her. When the police saw her picture, they told me it was her and told me to come home. They never let me touch her,” said Villanueva, fighting back tears.

The grieving mother said, “She went out to buy a carton of eggs for breakfast; something as innocent as that and she gets killed. I’ve searched for an answer, something that will explain why she had to die, but I haven’t found one.”

The pretty, dark-haired woman lives in a two-room apartment with five other children, including an 18-year-old stepdaughter. She supports the family with welfare. A chain-link fence that is topped by barbed wire surrounds the apartment building, which sits in a crime-ridden neighborhood where the houses are dilapidated and fences are defaced with gang graffiti.

Despite the poverty of the neighborhood, Sonia’s mother remembers her impish grin and dark eyes and happy outlook.

“She never thought that she was different. . . . She was happy with what she had. That girl could play for hours with her Barbie doll, in a make-believe world of ballerinas . . . But Sonia also accepted extraordinary responsibilities for a girl her age,” Villanueva said. “She would rush home from school and hurry to finish her homework. She also helped in the kitchen, but she was most helpful with the baby.”

Villanueva said the baby boy, Rafael, is still too young to understand why Sonia is not at home.

“He wakes up in the morning and walks over to where she used to sleep and looks for her. It breaks my heart to see him do that. . . . Her toys, the baby, they remind me of her. . . . The pain will never go away,” said Villanueva.

On Tuesday afternoon Villanueva and some relatives who traveled from Sacramento for the funeral prepared to leave for the mortuary.

Officials at Sherman Elementary School are accepting donations to help Villanueva cover the funeral expenses. Donations can be sent to the school at 450 24th St., San Diego 92102.