Teens’ Families Had No Hint of Violent Ending : Tragedy: Relatives struggle to cope with deaths of Santa Ana boy, 16, who killed pregnant 14-year-old and then himself.

Several days ago, 14-year-old Rosa Maria Vargas told her family that she had seen in her room a vision of a boyfriend who was killed in August by a stray bullet.

“She said, ‘He wanted me to come with him, but I didn’t want to,’ and she was crying,” recalled her 18-year-old sister, Betty Vargas. “My mother told her that it was just a dream, but she insisted that he had stood near her.”

Friday night, Vargas was shot in the head in front of her mother by a boy she had been dating and broke up with a week ago. The girl, who was three months pregnant, staggered from the lawn to the front door of her family’s home, where she died.

The boy, 16-year-old Victor Torres Chavez, also of Santa Ana, ran down the street and shot himself in the head with a .38-caliber revolver, police said. He died instantly, just a few doors down from the Vargas house in the 3300 block of South Park Drive.

Saturday morning, the families of both teens gathered in their separate homes to mourn. Vargas’ family said Chavez had not wanted her to have friends and apparently exploded when she wouldn’t see him any more.

His family was bewildered and said he was not a violent teen. They said they had no idea Chavez had a gun or that he was heading to Vargas’ house Friday night.

“He told his mom he was going to get his hair cut,” said cousin Yolanda Torres, 23. “Then police came and told us he’s dead. And that’s all we know. We know nothing else. We’re so confused by this whole thing.”

Vargas and Chavez had met through friends in December, said Blanca Lopez, 15, who was Vargas’ best friend at Saddleback High School until Chavez came along.

“She stopped talking to all her friends. He didn’t want her to,” said Lopez, as she sat in the living room of the Vargas’ home Saturday afternoon, her eyes red-rimmed with tears. “I thought Victor was going to pass, that she’ll come back to us. Why did he have to do this?”

Rosa Vargas was the fourth of seven children.

Betty Vargas said her sister began to ditch school when she started dating Chavez, who attended Horizon Education Center, an independent study program.

Chavez had dropped out of high school, but his brother, 18-year-old Alex, didn’t know when.

“He was a bad influence on her,” Betty Vargas said. “He was jealous of her attention and didn’t want her talking to anyone else.”

Chavez often came to his girlfriend’s house drunk and once, at a movie theater, had tried to punch her, said Vargas’ brother, 15-year-old Jacob. But the boyfriend missed and his fist hit a wall instead.

Sensing that her daughter’s relationship was unhealthy, Rosa Avita Vargas, 39, had counseled the teen to stop dating Chavez. She said she was glad when the younger Rosa obeyed. The family also agreed that the girl would keep her baby.

“She was innocent in her own way,” Betty Vargas said. “She loved to baby-sit my children and was looking forward to having her own.”

The teen-ager was at home Friday night with her family when Chavez knocked on the door at 7:45 p.m.

He had asked a friend to give him a bike ride to the Vargas home, according to Sgt. Dick Faust. Vargas came outside so the two could return to each other mementos they had exchanged during the six-month relationship.

Her mother followed and urged her to come back inside.

The boy asked the girl if the child she was carrying was his, and her mother told him he didn’t have to worry about it, family members said. Then, Chavez pulled the handgun from his waistband and shot at the mother, but missed.

“My mom said the bullet hit the wall, and she turned around and saw Rosa trying to push Victor away,” Betty Vargas said, crying. “We think that’s when he shot again, and this time the bullet hit my sister in the head.”

He shot several times at her, bullets piercing her neck and arm, Jacob Vargas said.

The boy’s friend, Juan Chavez, 21, fled at this point. He was later questioned by police and released, Faust said. He is not related to Victor Chavez.

Jacob Vargas said he was in the shower when he heard three shots.

“I ran out and my mom was screaming, ‘He shot her! He shot her!’ Then I saw my sister lying there,” he said, pointing to the front doorsteps. “I ran out to see if I could catch him, but he had already shot himself. He was lying in the street.

“I came back and held my sister,” Jacob continued in a dazed voice. “I was telling her not to leave us. But she already was dead. I felt her pulse and there was nothing.”

On Saturday, a mile away in the 200 block of Alton Avenue, Chavez’s relatives also were crying.

The 16-year-old was the youngest of five children, and “he was quiet, he kept to himself,” brother Alex Chavez said.

The family said they didn’t know whether he and his girlfriend had had problems.

Relatives had met Rosa Vargas a month ago when the 14-year-old had stayed at the Chavez home for about a week, cousin Torres said. Vargas then returned to her own home at her mother’s insistence.

“The two of them would joke around. I never saw them arguing,” she said. “But I don’t know what they did when they were alone.”

The family said Chavez had never shown any signs that he was capable of hurting himself or others.

“He was not violent,” Torres said. “We never thought he was going to go do that. You know, he was a nice guy, too.”