Texas Woman Shot Dead While Setting up Garage Sale Was Planning Anniversary Trip

Elizabeth Barraza, 29, was shot dead while setting up for a garage sale at her house in Tomball, Texas, on Jan. 25, 2019. (Houston County Sheriff's Office)

A Texas woman shot dead while setting up a garage sale was trying to raise money for an anniversary trip she and her husband were planning.

“I had to trade our fifth anniversary for her funeral,” Sergio Barazza, husband of the deceased Elizabeth Barraza, told reporters at a press conference on Feb. 6, reported KHOU.

“I had just left for work,“ Barraza added. “I’m just so happy the last words I got to say to my beautiful wife was ‘I love you.’ And she said ‘I love you too.’”

The suspect was captured on video surveillance approaching Barazza outside her Tomball house. They speak for several moments before the suspect shoots Barazza multiple times.

The suspect, who appears to be a woman, then flees the scene in a dark-colored pickup truck. The suspect did not steal anything.

The shooting took place on Jan. 25 as Barazza set up for a garage sale. The couple was scheduled to leave on the trip just two days later.

“I don’t understand how someone could do this to her,” Sergio Barraza said, reported the Houston Chronicle. “She didn’t deserve to pass away like this. How someone could be so monstrous to commit an act like this ... I just really can’t understand.”

Family members asked members of the public to come forward if they know anything while law enforcement officials said people who live nearby should check their surveillance cameras and see if a pickup truck shows up in the early morning hours of Jan. 25.

“We will do everything possible to bring justice to Elizabeth’s killer,” Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said. “Somebody out there knows something.”

There’s a $20,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of Barazza’s killer.

Anyone with information should call Houston Crime Stoppers at 713-222-TIPS (8477).

Crime Statistics

The FBI said that both violent crime and property crime decreased in 2017, the last year that full statistics are available for, compared to 2016. Overall violent crime decreased 0.2 percent from 2016 to last year, while property crime decreased 3 percent during that time, the agency said in September 2018, releasing data from the previous year.

“There were more than 1.2 million violent crimes reported to UCR nationwide in 2017. There was a 0.7 percent decrease in murders and a 4 percent decrease in robberies from 2016 to 2017. Aggravated assaults increased 1 percent in 2017. The FBI began collecting data solely on an updated rape definition last year, and 135,755 rapes were reported to law enforcement in 2017,” the FBI stated.

“The report also showed there were more than 7.7 million property crimes last year. Burglaries decreased 7.6 percent and larceny-thefts decreased 2.2 percent. Motor vehicle thefts increased by 0.8 percent from 2016 to 2017.”

The figures were compiled from more than 13,000 law enforcement agencies around the United States that submitted their crime data to the FBI.

From NTD News