Police in Odessa, Texas, say a 15-year-old boy fatally shot his ex-girlfriend’s mother and her two younger children in what they described as a targeted and “cowardly act of violence.”
Officers discovered the bodies of Jennifer Rodriguez, 39, her 13-year-old daughter, and 9-year-old son inside their luxury apartment after responding to a shooting report on Tuesday evening.
Investigators said the suspect previously dated Rodriguez’s 15-year-old daughter and originally planned to confront her outside school before heading to the apartment instead. “She is OK, she wasn’t injured … I’m sure after all this happened to her family, she’s not OK. But physically she was unharmed,” Police Chief Mike Gerke said. The teen fled but was arrested within 40 minutes.
The boy faces a capital murder charge and is being held at the Ector County Youth Center. Police recovered a handgun believed to have been used in the attack, though the motive remains unclear. The victims’ father wrote on GoFundMe that he was devastated by the loss, adding, “We don’t expect this kind of tragedy to happen to any of us.” Gerke condemned the shooting as a “tragic and cowardly act of violence.”