The teen mom was cuddling her baby when the two were executed along with four others by suspected cartel hitmen in California on Monday. Mom Alissa Parraz, 16, was still holding her 10-month-old son Nycholas Nolan Parraz when they were found in a ditch outside the shot-up home in Goshen early on Monday, according to officials and family.
Officials said on Tuesday that Parraz and her infant son looked to be escaping a "massacre" at their California house when they were shot in the heads. She was among the six people killed in the small farming community of Goshen overnight on Monday in what Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux said was either a gang- or cartel-related shooting.
Together in Death
Heartbreaking photos of Parraz tenderly holding her infant boy in the same position as when they were shot dead have now emerged. "I can't wrap my head around what kind of monster would do this," said the baby's great-grandfather, Samuel Pina.
"I can't understand who can just kill a baby like that. ... How can someone be a monster and do that? I cannot comprehend it," he told KFSN.
The young mother's mother claimed that her "beautiful daughter" was just 16 but the authorities said that she was 17.
"My heart is broken I am lost for words," Shyla Pina posted a series of touching photos along with heartbreaking posts, saying she "never got to meet in person" her "handsome grandson."
Samuel Pina claimed that Parraz and her child had been living in Goshen with her father's side of the family, where her grandmother and great-grandmother were also murdered along with her father's uncle and cousin.
Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux told the Los Angeles Times that one of the elderly women had also been shot in the head, was seemingly "shot in her sleep."
Killed Mercilessly
Police claimed that all the bodies were discovered in the roadway outside the house. The other victims have been identified as Rosa Parraz, 72; Marcos Parraz, 19; Eladio Parraz, 52; and Jennifer Analla, 49.
According to Teresa Douglass, a spokeswoman for the sheriff's office, Eladio Parraz was the teens' uncle, Rosa Parraz was their grandmother, and Analla was dating a different family member who was not killed.
According to authorities, two women ladies survived by skulking in a trailer on the site.
They informed the investigators that at least two men were seen on security cameras "sneaking onto the property". However, by the time they turned on, it was too late to take any action, according to Boudreaux.
According to the sheriff, the "manner and swiftness" of the attacks suggested professional killers.
"None of this was by accident. It was deliberate, intentional and horrific," Boudreaux said.
"If [they] are specifically shooting everyone in the head, they know what they are doing ... [and] they are comfortable with what they are doing," Douglass told the LA paper.
"I think it's specifically connected to the cartel," he said, without specifying a particular organization. The level of violence ... this was not your run-of-the-mill, low-end gang member," he said.
"We believe this is very targeted. This is very personal and we also believe this is a message being sent," the sheriff told KFSN.
Police believe that two suspects were involved in the shooting. Both have not been tracked or captured, and Boudreaux was unable to offer a plausible description.
A 911 caller who reported the shooting at 3:30 a.m. was alive inside the house, Boudreaux said.
"He could hear shots fired up and down the hallway," he said. "He put his feet against the door to keep them from opening it."
Before they left, the gunmen could be heard shaking the doorknob, according to Boudreaux.
Police initially believed they were dealing with an active shooter because so many rounds were fired. At least one of the six victims was still alive when they arrived, but he eventually died from his wounds.
Goshen, a semi-rural town 35 miles southeast of Fresno, has a population of around 3,000. Eddie Valero, the supervisor for Tulare County, described the bloodshed as "everyone's greatest fear."
