Pregnant Woman Killed by 2 Men; Husband Injured

Two men shot a pregnant woman in the back Tuesday afternoon in Paramount, killing her and her fetus, and then chased down her husband and shot him in the leg, authorities said.

Sandra Loya, 32, who was almost eight months pregnant, was pronounced dead at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center. Pedro Loya, 33, was in stable condition at Charter Community Hospital in Hawaiian Gardens. The couple had four children, authorities said.

“The husband was coming home and witnessed his wife being shot in front of their house,” said Lt. Paul Jendrucko of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s Lakewood station. “The men then got in a car, chased the husband down and shot him in the leg.”

The two men involved in the shooting are suspected gang members, authorities said.

The family has lived in the 7500 block of Adams Street in the modest neighborhood of single-family homes and commercial and industrial buildings for about a year. Loya is a plumber, neighbors said.

Sandra Loya was standing on the porch of her single-story stucco home with potted plants on the windowsill and a dirt yard in front. A dark, 1982 Buick Regal pulled over to the curb and a Latino with closely cropped hair jumped out of the car and shot her once in the back, said sheriff’s Homicide Detective Bob Snapper.

The gunman then saw Pedro Loya about 100 yards down the street with the couple’s four children, Snapper said. Loya told his children to flee, the detective said, and then he started running down the street. The assailant got back into the car and he and his cohort chased Loya for a block, officials said. The gunmen fired three times at Loya, hitting him once.

“We don’t have any idea what the motive is,” said Sheriff’s Lt. David Dietrich. “But it was not a random shooting. It was very specific who they were shooting at.”

Neighbor Geneva Hostetter said Loya’s young son, fleeing the gunmen, rode his bicycle to the house, where he saw his mother’s body on the porch.

Then “the little boy got off his bike and ran down the street,” Hostetter said. “He hollered, ‘Mama got shot!’ It was a pathetic sight.”

One neighbor said he was watching television when he heard the shots. He ran up to Pedro Loya, who told him to call 911.

“He told me he didn’t know why he was shot,” said the neighbor, who requested anonymity. “He said he didn’t have any problems with anybody.”