LANSDOWNE, Md. — Baltimore County Police are at investigating a homicide that claimed the life of 78-year-old Isabel Villalobos V De Vasquez's life at the Lansdowne Shopping Center.
When gunshots sounded outside the SaveMart in the Lansdowne Shopping Center, glass doors shattered at the front of the Hispanic supermarket sending people scrambling for their lives.
“Everybody was scared. Everybody was screaming... running,” said Celina Galicia, a store employee, “Some of my co-workers were trying to help people get into safe places. You never know with a guy. It could be inside. It could be outside.”
But it was just outside the doors where 78-year-old Isabel Villalobos V De Vasquez had set up on the sidewalk to sell her frozen, hand-made treats.
“She was here. She was sitting right here selling it, and there were a lot of children around her, because they were buying stuff from her,” said Galicia.
When the sporadic gunfire erupted, the popular vendor had nowhere to run.
“When they heard the shots, the guy who was in front of her... he tried to pull her from the back and that's how she fell, but unfortunately, she was dying already,” added Galicia.
Police arrived after the shooter had escaped on foot, and they're still trying to piece together why he began shooting with so many innocent people standing in his line of fire. They say the shooter was aiming at a man in the parking lot.
“The only information that we have is for one shooter,” said Officer Jennifer Peach of the Baltimore County Police Department, “So we have one defined suspect, and then we know there's at least one other male involved in this situation... possibly additional other male suspects may have been involved.”
Her family tells WMAR-2 Isabel Villalobos V De Vasquez came to this country from El Salvador 17 years ago.
Now, the friendly face who greeted patrons coming and going from the SaveMart is gone leaving behind six children and a host of grandchildren—-all because she ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“She was a nice person. She was an old grandma. She usually like to be independent. She was trying to work like immigrants do in the United States. Here, all the time, she was selling choco bananos. Something to live with, and unfortunately, in one shot, she couldn't see anymore.”
