Adriana Jimenez was preparing to turn 23 when gunfire outside her Canoga Park home left her fatally wounded and her sister hospitalized.
LOS ANGELES, Calif. — Sept. 11 was supposed to combine two milestones for Adriana Jimenez: her 23rd birthday and a gender reveal for the child she was expecting. Instead, her family entered that week mourning Jimenez and her unborn baby after a shooting outside her Canoga Park apartment.
Jimenez, 22, was shot in the head Aug. 23 while sitting in a car with her older sister, Maria Fernanda Jimenez, according to police and relatives. She was declared brain-dead and remained on life support before her family said she was removed from it. Her unborn child also died. Maria Fernanda Jimenez, 24, was wounded but survived. Authorities arrested Walter Francisco Rodriguez Garcia, 30, and prosecutors later amended the criminal case to charge him with murder in the deaths of Jimenez and her unborn child. He had earlier pleaded not guilty to attempted murder charges.
The planned birthday gathering shows how close the shooting came to a moment the family had expected to celebrate. Leonardo Ayala, the sisters’ uncle, told reporters that Jimenez’s birthday was Sept. 11 and that relatives planned to hold the gender reveal that day. Jimenez was about 16 weeks pregnant and already had a 6-year-old daughter. The family suddenly had to shift from preparations for another child to hospital decisions, funeral arrangements and the care of the young daughter Jimenez left behind.
Jimenez and her sister were together for much of the hours before the shooting. They worked as cooks at a Thai restaurant and finished their shift at about 2 a.m., Ayala told the Los Angeles Times. The sisters later went out with two cousins and Jimenez’s boyfriend, who was the father of the baby. By morning, the group returned to the apartment complex in Canoga Park. Jimenez drove a black Toyota Camry into an alley and waited while one of the others prepared to move a car so she could take a parking space.
Police said the shooting occurred shortly before 8 a.m. in the 8300 block of Northgate Avenue. As the sisters waited in the Toyota, a gunman approached and opened fire. Jimenez suffered the head wound that would prove fatal. Maria Fernanda Jimenez was struck in the throat area and also suffered another injury reported by authorities. Family members said one bullet narrowly missed structures that could have made her wounds fatal. Police also allege that the attacker attempted to shoot Jimenez’s boyfriend during the episode.
The sisters’ shared experience extended beyond the final hours before the attack. They were from El Salvador, and the Los Angeles Times reported that Adriana Jimenez had arrived in the United States about two years earlier. Maria Fernanda Jimenez had been in the country for more than a decade and helped bring her younger sister to the United States, according to their uncle. They worked together and lived near one another. Their family had already endured the death of the sisters’ mother from breast cancer about 13 years earlier.
That history gave Maria Fernanda Jimenez’s survival a complicated place in the family’s account of the shooting. She was recovering from her wounds but had lost the sister who had been beside her in the car. Ayala described the family as devastated and struggling to accept Jimenez’s death. His comments focused not only on the violence but also on the ordinary future that had vanished: a birthday, a pregnancy, a young daughter expecting her mother to return and two sisters who had built a life together after coming from El Salvador.
The investigation moved more quickly than the final criminal charges. Police arrested Rodriguez Garcia two days after the Aug. 23 shooting. Authorities said he had previously dated one of the women connected to the group, and the Los Angeles Times identified that woman as one of Jimenez’s cousins. Police initially presented the case without a publicly established motive. Family members also rejected reports that the shooting was gang-related, saying they did not believe that explanation reflected what happened.
Because Jimenez remained on life support, prosecutors initially filed three counts of attempted murder. The complaint also included allegations that Rodriguez Garcia personally and intentionally fired a gun. He pleaded not guilty to those charges. After Jimenez died, prosecutors amended the case and accused him of murdering both Jimenez and her unborn child. The later charges represent allegations rather than findings of guilt, and the prosecution will have to prove them through the court process.
The family’s most immediate concerns extended beyond the prosecution. Jimenez’s daughter, who was 6 at the time of the shooting and approaching her seventh birthday, was left without her mother. Ayala told local reporters that the girl cried for Jimenez and asked when she would return. Relatives organized fundraising for medical and funeral expenses and for the needs of the child. They also considered returning Jimenez’s remains to El Salvador, a decision that tied the family’s grief in Los Angeles to the country where the sisters were born.
The attack has left the family with a basic question investigators have not publicly answered: why the gunman opened fire. Police have described the location, identified the people who were present and arrested the man they say was responsible, but a motive has not been announced. Ayala repeatedly said the family wanted to understand why the shooting happened. That question is especially stark because the publicly available accounts describe Jimenez as waiting to park outside her home rather than participating in a confrontation.
The amended murder charges now make the courtroom the main setting for the next stage of the case. Prosecutors are expected to rely on evidence gathered by Los Angeles police to support their allegation that Rodriguez Garcia carried out the shooting. Any defense response to the murder counts will unfold through the criminal proceedings. Earlier reporting said he had pleaded not guilty to the attempted murder allegations, and no conviction has been entered in connection with Jimenez’s death.
For Jimenez’s relatives, however, the legal milestones come after the personal ones they had expected were taken away. The birthday passed without Jimenez, and the gender reveal never became the family celebration they had planned. Her sister survived, her daughter remains with relatives, and prosecutors have expanded the case to include two murder counts. As the prosecution moves forward, the motive for the shooting remains publicly unresolved.
Author note: Last updated October 20, 2026.