Woman Shot to Death on Apartment Balcony

A 55-year-old woman who moved here from rural Mexico eight months ago was shot dead on her balcony Sunday night as she engaged in one of her favorite pastimes--watching the action on the street below.

Valentina Roque was shot in the chest about 9 p.m. Sunday and died after she staggered into her apartment in the 300 block of West Washington Avenue, police said.

“At this point, we have no idea why she was shot,” said Lt. Bob Clark. No witnesses have come forward, and investigators were still combing the area Monday afternoon for clues.

“It’s certainly unusual, a lady standing on a balcony, struck once with a bullet,” Clark said, adding that police do not know if the shooter drove or walked past Roque’s home. It is the 17th killing in the city this year.

Police said gang activity and drug deals are common in the block, but the two-story apartment complex with the fenced-in swimming pool--named ironically Casa Serena or “serene home”--is well-managed, said police.

“We haven’t, to my immediate recollection, had any other homicides in that block, certainly not in that apartment complex,” said Clark.

The victim’s son, Santos Alvarez Roque, said that gang members cause frequent problems near the apartment complex and that when residents complain, police rarely come.

Alvarez, interviewed by telephone, wept as he asked his mother’s killer “not to be so cruel, to think about the (innocent) people who are affected” by the use of guns.

Neighbors suggested that her shooting may not have been random, saying Roque may have witnessed a drug deal or other criminal activity from her perch.

“We hear them arguing out there all the time,” one woman said. “They take over the street, and nobody wants to confront them.”

Police would not confirm that speculation about a motive.

Roque usually slept in the bedroom of the apartment, while her son and daughter-in-law, both in their twenties, shared the living room with their young child.

On Monday morning, there were six votive candles burning in the kitchen. Roque’s friend Benita Duarte moved despondently around Roque’s bedroom, where a few plain dresses and two pairs of shoes were kept, along with a picture of the Virgin of Guadalupe that hung over her headboard.

Known to her friends as “Dona Vale,” Roque eight months ago left her husband and four other adult children, as well as years of working in cornfields in the village of San Martin Pachiveain the Mexican state of Guerrero, to spend more time with her son in Santa Ana.

He wanted to take care of her because of her age, Duarte said.

Since she got here, she had made few friends in the complex, so she amused herself by watching what was happening on the streets. Duarte said she preferred to look out her bedroom window, which faced directly onto Durant Street, than watch television.