Poverty as Well as Bullets Killed Yuridia Balbuena

They became victims of their own impoverishment.

With Modesto Balbuena out of work, his family of six lost their Costa Mesa apartment four months ago, unable to keep up the rent. So longtime friend Francesca Albear, living nearby on Wallace Avenue, took them into her small garage.

The Balbuenas slept and ate and watched TV behind a windowless, paint-scarred one-car garage door. Its sides were jammed with newspaper to keep out the cold night air. The door itself was bleak, cheap plywood.

Too thin to stop a bullet.

Last Saturday night, someone blindly shot three small-caliber bullets through the garage door’s right side. Struck and killed was Yuridia “Judy” Balbuena, 15, seven months pregnant, who was preparing a cake for the family dinner. Doctors worked furiously but were unable to save her baby.

Crime is down significantly in Orange County. In Costa Mesa, violent crime is down 21% over the last two years. But statistics put together in Washington mean little if you are poor, and a cold killer has chosen you as victims.

Members of the Balbuena family agreed to talk with me and my colleague, Crystal Carreon, Wednesday afternoon at a friend’s home where they are temporarily living, and provided us with Yuridia’s picture.

Modesto Balbuena, his grief overwhelming, could barely talk about his daughter.

“She was a good girl,” was about all he could say before leaving us to join his wife in another room.

No one can say with any assuredness why this shocking tragedy happened. But police detectives, with at least some evidence to go on, have raised the possibility that the shooting could have been gang-related. Gang graffiti was found in the area the night before. The police are also investigating reports that some people living in the garage may have once had gang ties.

The gang suspicion has several of the stunned neighbors already committed to leaving Wallace Avenue, to raise their children in safer surroundings. The Balbuenas themselves, unsure of their future here, have discussed returning to their native Mexico for good.

But for now they’ve got to arrange to bury their dead and sort out how their lives had come to this.

“People are talking about why this happened, but nobody knows; we don’t know,” said Yuridia’s brother Armando, 18.

The Costa Mesa Police Department has committed dozens of detectives, street cops and gang investigators to finding this killer. They’ve put out fliers throughout the neighborhood seeking information. By Wednesday night, however, nothing concrete had turned up.

“We not only don’t have a motive, we can’t even be sure who the gunman was shooting at,” said Costa Mesa Police Lt. Ron Smith. “He could not have seen through that door.”

Francesca Albear’s home sits well back off Wallace, behind another house. After the shots about 9 p.m., eyewitnesses saw the a man cross a vacant field of weeds, then climb a chain-link fence onto the back grounds of Pomona Elementary School. He’s described as young and slender, with a shaved head.

When Crystal and I interviewed the family members, Yuridia’s fiance, Omar Garcia, and her brother Armando both said they had no idea why the police would believe this shooting could be gang-connected.

Armando did say with certainty: This tragedy could never have happened if their poverty had not forced them into that garage to live . . .

Modesto Balbuena moved to the U.S. from Guererro, Mexico, near Mexico City, in the early 1980s to find work. It was in 1991 that he finally felt secure enough to bring his wife and their children.

But life here has been difficult. The Balbuenas spoke no English and had no work skills that would pay them beyond low wages. Their most recent troubles began when all three men, Modesto, Armando and Omar, were out of work.

But the Balbuenas had been neighbors with Francesca Albear in Guererro years ago. Though she had three children of her own (and recently gave birth to a baby girl), she let the Balbuenas have her garage for a mere $100 a month. They jammed bunk beds and other living pieces, plus a microwave and TV, into the 12 by 20 foot space. The couple lived there with Yuridia, Armando, two younger daughters and eventually Omar.

Nobody, of course, expected such violence to follow.

Now Francesca Albear has declared she and her family will move too.

“She fears for the baby,” explained her 17-year-old son, Omar Albear.

Rose Aguayo, 24, who lives in the apartment above the Albear home with her husband and two toddler children, said they’re moving too.

When I asked why, she replied in broken English: “Scared. For my babies.”

And a neighbor who heard the shots said she’s moving too.

“My daughter just turned three months old today,” she told me on Wednesday. “This is no place to raise her. Especially if it’s true that gangs were involved.”

Yuridia Balbuena had plans for her baby too.

“She had lots of dreams for a family,” said her fiance, Omar Garcia. “She wanted two boys, two girls. She loved it when she found out we were going to have a girl.”

They had agreed on the baby’s name: Yuridia Daisy Balbuena Garcia.

Yuridia will lie in a casket with her premature child in her arms for services. The family bought her a white gown to wear, which her mother picked out. The baby will wear a pajama outfit that Yuridia and Omar had picked out together.

“I think she would have liked that,” he said softly.

Public viewing will be from 4 to 6 p.m. today at the Pierce Brothers Funeral Home in Costa Mesa. A rosary will be said at 7 p.m. today at the St. Joachim Catholic Church in Costa Mesa. A Mass for the two dead will be held there Friday morning at 10.

The family will then take Yuridia and her child to their native Guererro for burial in a family plot.

Only then, family members said, will they decide where they will live.

Jerry Hicks’ column appears Monday and Thursday. Readers may reach Hicks by calling (714) 564-1049 or e-mail to jerry.hicks@latimes.com