Francisco Javier Ochoa is charged with manslaughter following the death of Joselyn Espinoza (Picture: Houston Police Department)
A woman who locked herself in her boyfriend’s truck to protect herself from him was killed as he allegedly smashed the window and triggered a gun in his hand.
Joselyn Alicia Espinoza, 24, and her boyfriend, Francisco Javier Ochoa, 19, drove up to a motel around 1.30am on September 15, according to court records.
CCTV footage showed Ochoa getting out of the truck and walking to the passenger side to Espinoza, who locked the door, police told McClatchy News.
Ochoa tried aggressively to open the door, then went back to the driver’s side and used a handgun to smash the window, investigators said.
Joselyn Alicia Espinoza had been with her boyfriend for a couple of months, according to her family (Picture: GoFundMe)
‘In striking the glass with the handgun, he discharged it,’ stated court records.
Surveillance footage showed Espinoza’s body fall out of the truck when Ochoa got the door open, and that he put her back inside and drove away.
Espinoza was taken in a ‘private vehicle’ to St Joseph Medical Center, where she was identified by police who observed what looked like a gunshot wound.
She was then transferred to Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead.
Ochoa declined to speak to officials and did not consent to a vehicle search, according to a probable cause affidavit obtained by The Miami Herald.
Espinoza’s family told detectives that she had been in a relationship with Ochoa for a couple months and was staying at a motel in Humble, which is about 20 miles north of Houston.
‘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 s sister, Destiny, told KPRC.
In a GoFundMe page for Espinoza, her mother, Arely Gusman, stated that she ‘left behind her most precious love which is her 7-year-old daughter’.
Ochoa has been charged with manslaughter.
He is being held on a $200,000 bond.
The GoFundMe page had raised more than $2,700 as of Monday evening.
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