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10-Year-Old Girl's Mother Shot To Death During Virtual Classroom Meeting
“I've learned through decades of doing this that when you think you've seen everything, you haven't," Martin County (Florida) Sheriff William Snyder said of the tragic scene that played out in front of Maribel Rosado Morales' four children and two of their cousins.
A Florida elementary student had a horrific start to her school year when her mother was shot and killed in the middle of a virtual classroom session.
The 10-year-old had just logged onto her computer for the first day of virtual learning Tuesday along with her teacher and other students, when her mother’s ex-boyfriend allegedly walked into their Indiantown home and shot her mother to death, Martin County Sheriff’s Office public information officer Christine Christofek Weiss told Oxygen.com
The shooting wasn't visible to the teacher or other students.
“The teacher did hear what appeared to be shouting, or some type of domestic issue occurring and muted the volume so no one could hear it,” Weiss said. “At one point, the teacher did see the 10-year-old student cover her ears.”
Then the girls’ screen went black after a “projectile” hit the computer screen, Weiss said.
The student’s mother, 32-year-old Maribel Rosado Morales, was shot to death in front of six children who were at the home at the time, including three siblings of the 10-year-old and two cousins, BuzzFeed News reports.
Weiss told Oxygen.com that witnesses at the scene told the dispatcher over the phone that Morales had been shot by her ex-boyfriend, Donald J. Williams.
“They were familiar with him,” she said.
Martin County Sheriff William Snyder said Morales was killed around 8 a.m., allegedly after the former couple had some sort of confrontation involving a video, according to local station WPEC.
“He says she actually started to smile at him and he became enraged and shot her,” he said.
After the fatal shooting, Weiss told Oxygen.com that Williams—who had not been together with Morales in more than a year—jumped onto a public bus.
“The bus driver who picked him up felt uneasy with his behavior, jumped off the bus and called 911,” she said.
Two community policing deputies located the bus and stayed with it until SWAT team members and detectives arrived to take Williams into custody.
“The gun he used was in a bag, on the bus,” Weiss said.
She alleged that Williams confessed to his involvement in the shooting.
Neighbors were shocked by the sudden outburst of violence and described the area as a usually quiet community.
“She was very friendly, loving, kind person,” neighbor Jeremy Carroll said of Morales, according to WPEC. “It’s just sad to see that situation happen.”
Snyder said Williams will be facing first-degree murder charges.
“I've learned through decades of doing this that when you think you've seen everything, you haven't," Snyder said, according to BuzzFeed. "I know that people hearing about this, reading about this, are going to be horrified by this.”
