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A Texas woman is dead after her boyfriend’s gun went off while he was trying to smash open the window of the truck she had locked to escape him, officials say.
Francisco Javier Ochoa, 19, has been charged with manslaughter following the death of his girlfriend, Joselyn Espinoza, 24, according to a release from the Houston Police Department.
Patrol officers arrived at St. Joseph Medical Center on September 15 after a woman, later identified as Espinoza, was reported to be suffering from a gunshot wound.
She was transported to the medical center by “private vehicle,” police said. Authorities claim they tried to speak to Ochoa there but he refused to answer or consent to a vehicle search, according to a probable cause statement seen by The Miami Herald.
Espinoza was later transferred to Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead.
Detectives spoke to Espinoza’s family and learned she had been in a relationship with Ochoa for a couple of months. They also heard that she had been staying at a motel in Humble, about 30 minutes outside of Houston, per reports from the Herald, and determined that to be a likely scene where the shooting took place.
Surveillance footage from the motel allegedly showed Ochoa and Espinoza drive a truck into the parking lot at around 1:30 a.m.
Ochoa then exited the vehicle and walked around to the passenger side, where Espinoza was, and tried to aggressively open her door but she appeared to have locked it, police told McClatchy News.
After walking back to the driver’s side, Ochoa used a handgun to break the window, however, the firearm went off, shooting Espinoza in the head, according to police.
Court records also claim the footage shows her lifeless body fall out of the truck when Ochoa managed to open her door, before he put her back in and drove away.
“We still don’t know exactly what they were arguing about, but all I know is that she was trying to get away from him,” Espinoza’s sister, Destiny, told KPRC.
The Herald reports that a GoFundMe dedicated to the 24-year-old says she “left behind her most precious love which is her 7-year-old daughter.”
