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‘She Was My Mountain’: Florida Mom Killed In Botched Mothers' Day Carjacking
“She was my better half, my other half,” Yahaira Viado said of her sister, Roxana Sanchez, who died in a carjacking gone awry on May 8.
A Florida mom was gunned down in her driveway in a botched carjacking a day before Mother’s Day.
Roxana Sanchez, 36, was fatally shot last weekend after returning home from an evening of dinner and shopping, according to the Orange County Sheriff’s Office.
Carjackers allegedly confronted Sanchez and a friend in her driveway after midnight on May 8. The two men had allegedly trailed Sanchez home.
“They were just talking and a car comes up behind them,” Homicide Sergeant Joe Covelli told local media at a press conference on Tuesday. "Two Black males get out, approach the victims on both sides of the car, bang on the car, telling them to get out.”
Sanchez was shot and killed while attempting to flee, authorities said.
"The driver — in fear — put the car into reverse, striking the suspect’s car," Covelli explained. “The passenger suspect started shooting and that’s the side that Roxana was sitting on.”
Sanchez was later pronounced dead at the hospital. No arrests have been made in the shooting. Detectives are now begging for the public’s assistance in identifying the Florida mother’s killers.
“Our homicide detectives are working around the clock to solve this murder,” Sheriff John Mina said. “We are standing with Roxana’s family today to make a plea to our community: if anyone saw anything or knows anything in this case no matter how insignificant the information may seem.”
Authorities also released surveillance footage of the purported suspects traveling in the white or silver sedan. The car has a sunroof, officials said.
County authorities described Sanchez’s murder as an act of “senseless violence.”
“Roxana was a daughter, a sister, a mother, a wife, and she has been described as the glue that held her entire family together,” said Mina. “Her husband Douglas Mejia and her two boys Edward and Antonio now have to face the unimaginable of going on without her.”
“She was my mountain in this relationship,” Douglas Mejia, Sanchez’s husband said. "She was gone way too soon. Especially on a glorious day. On Sunday, Mother’s Day, that we had plans. Me and the boys.”
The grieving husband teared up as he spoke to reporters this week.
"And we woke up… ‘what are we going to do?’ Meja said. “That’s the question one of my sons asked me, the oldest. And I told him… ‘let’s celebrate her, her memory.'"
Sanchez’s family also described her as a “caring” mother with an “infectious smile”
“She loved everyone,” her sister, Yahaira Viado, said. “She lived for her husband and the two kids. That’s all she would talk about. All her friends, and family, and co-workers can tell you that. She will help anyone without asking anything in return. That’s the kind of person that she was.”
Viado said her sister had recently celebrated her 36th birthday.
“She was my better half, my other half,” Viado added. “To the person that did this to her, know that you took her from us way too soon. She wasn’t doing anything to you. Just know that you left two young boys without a mom right before Mother’s Day.”
Viado, also worded a stern statement to her sibling’s suspected killers while choking back tears.
“We want justice for our sister,” Viado said. “We just want to know why, why you have to do that to her? Just keep us in the back of your head when you’re about to go to sleep — if you can’t sleep — because I can’t think of a person that can do this and go to sleep at night.”
The suspects remained at large as of Thursday afternoon, a spokesperson for the Orange County Sheriff’s Office confirmed with Oxygen.com.
