Ramona Prieto held her daughter's head in her lap crying, as her daughter struggled to breathe early Sunday.
Prieto held on to 14-year-old Monalisa Nava after the girl's boyfriend ran away. She held on to her as the gunshot wound was slowly taking her daughter's life and the life of the teen's unborn child.
"She was trying to make a better life for her and her child," Prieto told the Sun Tuesday. Nava was three months pregnant. "She was trying to get away from him."
Prieto never liked her daughter's boyfriend, 14-year-old Ramiro Lopez -- the father of Nava's unborn child. She didn't like that he was in a gang. She didn't like that he tried to control her life. She didn't like that he got her to quit school after the eighth grade.
Metro Police said an argument between Lopez and Nava outside her Oahu Street home, near Charleston Boulevard and U.S. 95, early Sunday ended with Lopez accused of shooting the teen and fleeing.
Lopez remains on the run and police suspect he may try to flee to Mexico. He was born in Mexico and had been in the area only for the past three years.
Lopez will be charged with murder as an adult and booked into the Clark County jail when he is caught, said Lt. Tom Monahan of Metro's homicide unit.
"We do know that he is affiliated with a street gang," Monahan said. "When you are associated with a criminal group, it's going to be easier to get a gun."
Nava had been told for nearly the entire year she was dating Lopez that he wasn't the guy for her.
"I talk to her about it. Her father tried to get her away from him," said Jose Ochoa, Nava's godfather. "He wouldn't let her do anything. He intimidated her."
Nava wanted to go back to school. She stopped after the eighth grade at K.O. Knudson Middle School while all her friends went on to high school. She was excited about her baby and was taking parenting classes, Ochoa said.
Nava's mother also tried to talk to her about Lopez, especially when she learned Nava was pregnant.
Prieto was fearful of the boyfriend, but never thought something like this would happen. She never thought her daughter would die.
"She wanted to leave him, but he wouldn't let her go," Prieto said.
Prieto said for days before the killing, Lopez would call the house constantly. He wanted Nava to move with him to Mexico.
"She told him that she was born here -- why would she want to go to Mexico?" Prieto said.
Finally, Prieto said, Nava was breaking away from Lopez.
Prieto sat on the sofa at her home Tuesday flipping through a photo album, looking at pictures of her young daughter smiling. She pointed to a picture of her daughter and son, James, standing with their grandfather in Mexico taken a couple of years ago.
There were also pictures of Nava and Lopez smiling, holding each other. Prieto muttered in Spanish as she flipped to another page of pictures of her smiling daughter.
Prieto then stood up and walked over to the kitchen of her home and pointed to the table and chairs.
A couple of hours before her life ended, Nava sat at the kitchen table with her mother. They talked about Nava's pregnancy and her life.
"I said to her, 'Leave this guy. Make a better life for you and your baby,' " Prieto said. "Then my daughter left me. I held her, but she left me. She was taken from me."
Prieto said Lopez showed up at the house early Sunday. Nava went outside and down the driveway around the bend a little with her 13-year-old brother James, who was holding their 2 1/2-year-old brother.
Prieto stayed in the house. Then minutes later James came running into the house saying Lopez had hit him in the side of the head with a gun and was fighting with Nava. James was trying to call his father as Prieto ran outside.
"I went to her and started pulling on her arm to get her away from him. He started waving a gun around and then put it like this (at Nava's neck)," Prieto said as she formed her fingers and thumb in the shape of a gun and put it to her neck.
She ran back into the house and called 911, but as she finished giving the police her address, she heard the shot.
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