A pregnant mother who was declared brain-dead last week after she and her sister were shot while sitting in a car outside their Canoga Park apartment was taken off life support, according to her family.
Adriana Jimenez, 22, who was 16 weeks pregnant and the mother of a 6-year-old girl, had been on life support since the Aug. 23 shooting. Her family said she was taken off life support on Friday.
In a phone interview, Leonardo Ayala, 37, said his niece was set to hold a gender reveal party as part of her 23rd birthday on Sept 11. He said Jimenez’s sister, Maria Fernanda, 24, was in stable condition and still recovering from her injuries at a hospital.
Ayala said one of the bullets struck Fernanda in the throat, missing her vocal cords and jugular vein.
“The doctor said had it been just a few centimeters back, the bullet would have taken her life,” Ayala said.
He said it had been an especially difficult time for Fernanda, as she and her sister lost their mother 13 years ago to breast cancer. And now, he said, she has lost her young sister.
“She’s heartbroken,” Ayala said.
He said the family felt the same and was having a difficult time accepting the loss.
“We feel devastated,” he said. “We still can’t believe that this happened. We don’t want to accept that [Adriana] is not going to be with us.”
The Los Angeles Police Department said the shooting occurred last week in the 8300 block of Northgate Avenue. Police said the sisters were sitting inside a black Toyota Camry, parked in an alley outside their apartment, when a gunman walked up and opened fire, striking both women.
Ayala said that, on that day, Jimenez and her older sister had finished working as cooks at a Thai restaurant around 2 a.m. and decided to go out with two cousins. Jimenez’s boyfriend, who was the father of the unborn baby, was also with the group.
He said Jimenez was driving and pulled into the alley that led to the parking lot of their apartment. She and her sister were in the car waiting for one of their cousins to move their car out of a parking space when the shooting happened, he said. The shooting occurred shortly before 8 a.m., according to police.
Ayala and police said the suspect was the ex-boyfriend of one of the cousins and that he also attempted to shoot Jimenez’s boyfriend. Ayala said the shooting was not gang-related as previously reported by other news outlets. A motive for the shooting remains under investigation.
“I still want to know why he did what he did,” Ayala said.
Two days after the incident, police arrested 30-year-old Walter Francisco Rodriguez Garcia of Gardena in connection with the shooting.
The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office has charged Garcia with three counts of attempted murder, with special allegations that he personally and intentionally discharged a firearm, according to the criminal complaint. He pleaded not guilty to the charges, court records show.
Prosecutors said they anticipated upgrading the charges against Garcia amid news that the young pregnant mother would be taken off life support.
Garcia, who operated a barbershop in South L.A., was charged with battery and vandalism in 2022, according to court records. He pleaded not guilty, and a jury later acquitted him of the charges, the records show.
Adriana Jimenez with her 6-year-old daughter. A family member says the woman’s death has left them devastated.
(Image courtesy of Adriana Jimenez family)
Ayala said the family were still trying to determine if they would fly his niece’s body back to El Salvador, where she is from.
He said Jimenez had been in the country for only two years before last week’s shooting. He said Fernanda, who came to the U.S. more than a decade ago, brought her younger sister to America.
The family started a GoFundMe to raise $10,000 to pay for medical and funeral expenses.
“Our family never imagined we would find ourselves facing a tragedy of this magnitude,” Vilma Carrazas, the girls’ aunt, wrote on the fundraiser. “Along with the overwhelming grief, we are now faced with unexpected medical and funeral expenses, the possible repatriation of Adriana’s remains, and the responsibility of making sure her young daughter is supported and cared for during this incredibly difficult time.”