A 10-year-old girl pretended to be dead after a masked gunman entered her Texas apartment and shot her parents and sister in the head. After surviving the massacre, the girl FaceTimed her grandmother from the scene.
“She said, ‘Granny, someone came in and shot me, my mom, my dad, and my sister, and they dead,”’ family member Angela Ervin told ABC 13. “She was in the house for about 15 minutes with the bodies until we got here.'”
According to authorities, the young girl said her parents and 6-year-old sister were lined up and shot in the head one by one. She then showed both her grandmother and additional family members the bloody aftermath on FaceTime.
Assistant Police Chief Patricia Cantu said in a press conference shared on Facebook that the girl suffered a gunshot wound in the arm and was transported to a nearby hospital. The girl’s 1-year-old brother who was in the apartment also survived the murderous attack, and her 8-year-old brother wasn’t home at the time.
“This is a very, very tragic scene. We’re sending out prayers to the family,” Cantu said. “This was a very difficult scene not only for us, the officers, but the family as well. So, we’re sending out prayers and hopes that anybody has any information.”
Cantu noted there were no indications that the gunman broke into the home, adding that police were searching for surveillance footage in pursuit of the killer, who has yet to be identified and is still at large.
“This was probably not a home invasion… there was no damage. There was possibly a known disturbance of some sort,” Cantu said. “But right now, we don’t have all the details, and right now, we’re just looking for a suspect to see what happened.”
According to the local outlet, family at the scene said they didn’t have any idea who could be behind the killings. The couple had recently moved to the apartment from Spring, Texas.
Also in Texas, a father and licensed gun owner allegedly caught a “peeping Tom” masturbating just outside his 10-year-old daughter’s window earlier this week, leading to a pursuit that ended with the dad shooting the suspect at a nearby gas station, according to ABC 7.
Harris County Sheriff’s deputies said a husband and wife confronted an intoxicated individual after they heard their daughter scream from her bedroom around 10 p.m. after she saw the man pleasuring himself outside her window.
“She looks over at the window and this guy is at her window,” the girl’s mother, who asked to remain anonymous, told KPRC-TV. “He took my daughter’s innocence away.”