Stray Gunfire Kills Woman as 9 Bullets Strike Her Home

When the volley of gunshots began across the street, Maria “Bibi” Villalvazo’s thought was for her father, sitting out on the front porch of their South-Central Los Angeles home drinking a beer.

But before she could reach her father, nine bullets hit the house on East 48th Place, near the Blue Line tracks that connect downtown Los Angeles and Long Beach. As she stood just inside her front door, one shot struck Villalvazo in the upper chest, rupturing her aorta. She died in the early hours of Monday morning.

“She was yelling, ‘Ricardo, call 911. I’ve been shot,’ ” Villalvazo’s husband said Monday. “That was the last thing she said.”

The stray gunfire that killed Villalvazo spared her husband, Ricardo, and her 7-year-old daughter, Almida. It also missed her father, Eugenio Murrietta, whom she had gone to warn about the danger.

The 30-year-old legal secretary, who worked for a law firm in Santa Monica, was another victim of the weekend gunfire that has become common in some parts of the city.

Los Angeles Police Det. Sgt. J.D. Furr said the area south of Vernon Avenue has become a hotbed of gang-related shootings. He said Jesus Morales, 19, had been killed a few blocks away the night before.

Furr said Monday afternoon that three young men had been taken in for questioning in the Villalvazo shooting, but they have not been charged.

He said the shooting seems to have occurred when two rival gangs clashed. Villalvazo was not a gang member.

Her aunt, Dina Villalvazo, said her niece was the financial mainstay of her family, working long hours at the Santa Monica law firm while her husband was ill.

The family said it was still preparing to break the news to Villalvazo’s 7-year-old daughter. “We’re going to tell her the news gently,” the aunt said. “Right now, she’s with neighbors.”

Ricardo Villalvazo had been weeping and found it difficult to talk about his wife. The aunt said she, too, was shaken by what had happened.

“You see it in the news. You see these things happen,” she said. “Now, it’s happened to us. You don’t understand why these kids do what they do.”