A Houston family is remembering a 67-year-old leasing agent killed while at work as a loving mother, grandmother and caregiver who spent her life helping others.<\/p>\n
Rosa Ybarra was one of two people killed in a shooting at the Park at Woodlake Apartments on Houston’s west side. Charging documents say Derrick Duane Jackson walked into the management office and shot and killed Ybarra and Felix Macz.<\/p>\n
Now, Ybarra’s family is demanding justice while facing the difficult task of moving forward without the woman they describe as the backbone of their family.<\/p>\n
Ybarra’s granddaughter, Saleen Salinas, was out of town when she learned her grandmother had been killed.<\/p>\n
“The last thing that she told me, she’ll be waiting for me when I get home, that she loved me so much and that she missed me and that she was proud of me,” Salinas said.<\/p>\n
Ybarra’s daughter, Krystal Martinez, said her mother spent decades caring for others. Before becoming a leasing consultant, Ybarra ran a child care service and drove neighborhood children to school.<\/p>\n
“She used to be called Miss Rosie, and she used to bus all the neighborhood kids to school and help a lot of the low-income women that didn’t have a father or something out with daycare, after-school daycare,” Martinez said.<\/p>\n
Ybarra was also caring for her adult son with a disability and was in the process of adopting a 3-year-old boy from foster care, according to her family.<\/p>\n
Her longtime friend, Debra Uilkie, said Ybarra was the “monarch” of the family.<\/p>\n
“She’s the monarch of this family, and I spend holidays with them. My children spend holidays with them. It’s going to be difficult to move on,” Uilkie said.<\/p>\n