A man accused of shooting a pregnant mother and her sister while they sat in their car outside their Canoga Park apartment now faces murder charges, prosecutors said Wednesday.
The Los Angeles County district attorney has charged Walter Francisco Rodriguez Garcia with the murders of Adriana Jimenez, 22, who was 16 weeks pregnant, and her unborn child in an August 23 shooting in Canoga Park. Jimenez was taken off life support Friday after being left brain dead.
A man accused of shooting a pregnant mother and her sister while they sat in their car outside their Canoga Park apartment now faces murder charges, prosecutors said Wednesday.
The Los Angeles County district attorney's office said it had amended its felony complaint against Walter Francisco Rodriguez Garcia, 32, of Gardena, charging him with the murder of Adriana Jimenez, 22, and her unborn child.
Jimenez was 16 weeks pregnant and the mother of a 6-year-old girl. She was left brain dead by the August 23 shooting. Her family, which has continued to raise money on GoFundMe for funeral and medical costs, said she was taken off life support Friday.
Her older sister, Maria Fernanda Jimenez, 24, was shot in the throat and shoulder. She is expected to survive.
Shortly after the shooting, Garcia was arrested and charged with three counts of attempted murder, with special allegations that he personally and intentionally discharged a firearm, according to the criminal complaint. Garcia pleaded not guilty on those charges and has not responded to the new charges, according to court records.
Leonardo Ayala, the uncle of the two women, said in a phone interview that he was happy to hear about the criminal charges and that they were needed to bring justice for his niece.
The shooting occurred in the 8300 block of Northgate Avenue, according to the Los Angeles Police Department. 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.
Ayala said his nieces had finished working as cooks at a Thai restaurant around 2 a.m. and decided to go out with two cousins. Jimenez's boyfriend, the father of the unborn baby, was also with the group. 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 a car out of a parking space when the shooting happened, he said. Police said the shooting occurred shortly before 8 a.m.
Ayala and police said Garcia was the ex-boyfriend of one of the cousins and that he allegedly also attempted to shoot Jimenez's boyfriend. A motive for the shooting remains under investigation.
"It's all very maddening," Ayala said. "I'll never understand why he did what he did."
He said the death of his niece came days before she planned to have a gender reveal party as part of her 23rd birthday celebration this Friday.
This article was generated with AI assistance.