The husband of a Texas woman wants the man who shot and killed her in an alleged road rage incident to come forward. Zane Jones was headed to work with his wife, Paola Nunez Linares, about 9:15 Monday night in Hurst when she was shot in the head along East Loop 820. Jones said his wife came to Texas from Guatemala looking for a better life.
Jones told NBC 5 that he and Nunez were traveling in their Kia minivan when the altercation occurred. As gunshots rang out, Jones tried to protect himself and his wife. He fled to a Shell gas station in the 1400 block of West Hurst Boulevard. He initially thought his wife was ducking to avoid getting shot but then realized she had been seriously injured.
More from CafeMom: Dad Saves Daughter by Ramming Truck Into Drunk Driver's Car After He'd Been Following Her
The alleged incident started because of a slow vehicle on the road.
The grieving husband explained to NBC 5 that the car in front of them was slowing down traffic, so he decided to pass it. Once he was in the left lane, however, the suspect's vehicle came up on him extremely fast.
"As I was passing that car, another car behind me sped up, going like 90 mph, and was like on my bumper. So I completed the pass, moved over to the right lane and the other car sped up to me and almost like crashed into my car, got very close and then backed away. And I flipped them off," explained Jones, according to the news outlet. "She [his wife] always told me not to flip people off because you never know."
Jones said he thought the other driver was flipping him off, too.
He soon realized the suspect was not making a hand gesture. Instead, it was a gun, and the man began to shoot rapidly.
"He slowed down a little bit and shot through the back left window into the back of her head, and I didn't know that she'd been hit in the back of the head at all. She ducked, I thought, and I ducked too, and I said, 'Get out, stay down, I'm getting off.' He shot again and it went through my headrest, through the windshield," Jones told NBC 5.
He told his wife to call 911. When she didn't respond, he realized she wasn't just ducking — she was slumped over.
Nunez was unresponsive but breathing when emergency personnel arrived.
Her distraught husband reportedly continued to talk to his wife while emergency responders tried to revive her. Nunez was taken to a nearby hospital and put on life support. Jones said he was taken to the police station to test his hands to be sure he didn't shoot her.
He told NBC 5 that is standard procedure. He arrived at the hospital sometime later, and Nunez succumbed to her injuries around 2:15 a.m.
Nunez came to the United States from Guatemala for a better life.
Jones said he told his wife she would be safer in Texas than in Guatemala, where she had been mugged several times, NBC 5 reported.
"She's been mugged five times at gunpoint in Guatemala and I sat here and assured her this is a much safer place to be, and that may be, but it wasn't for her," Jones lamented. "Thirty-five years she survived in Guatemala. Took her two years to get killed here, at no fault of her own."
Nunez and Jones worked together at Kelly Moore Paints, where she was a training coordinator. She recently got her driver's license and green card, and life was good.
More from CafeMom: Injured 15-Year-Old Tries To Do CPR on Dying Dad After He Was Shot in a Road Rage Incident
Police have not identified a suspect in the shooting.
There are few details in the case besides the suspect's vehicle appearing to be a dark-colored older model car. Jones and his mother-in-law, Ana Linares, want the suspect to come forward.
"I need him caught, I need him prosecuted, I need him in prison. I need him to know he didn't just fire a gun into a car, 'The end.' He killed someone who's not like anyone," Jones said. "He killed someone who fought so hard to be here, who loved my kids, that loved me, someone who's building a life and a career for herself. Someone who had nothing to do with anything. Someone who was a passenger of the person he was mad at. I want him to rot."
Linares echoed her son-in-law's grief. "They don't know the harm they do to other people. Right? They have no idea," she said, according to NBC 5. "I truly hope he will be caught and put in prison. He cannot be on the streets because something like this can happen again."
A GoFundMe account has been established to help with final expenses and to aid in travel costs for Nunez's family in Guatemala. It has raised more than $4,500 of a $10,000 goal thus far.
"She was a dedicated wife, step mother, and worker. She always left everyone she interacted with a little better off than they were, and she was truly the best person I've ever known," Jones wrote on GoFundMe.
The investigation is ongoing; anyone with information should contact Detective C. Jackson at 817-788-7179.
