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"She came here for a better life;" 7-year-old had 4 relatives murdered before escaping Honduras

Heidy Villanueva had four relatives murdered in Honduras before moving here and also losing her life to gun violence.

Heidy Villanueva, the 7-year-old bystander shot and killed in Jacksonville came to the United States to escape the violence that killed four of her relatives in her home country of Honduras, her grandmother said.

“It’s been disastrous,” Gloria Argentina Rivas-Rosa told First Coast News. “I’ve gone through so much pain and now here I am. It’s awful.”

The father of her children was killed in a robbery in her home country. Two of her brothers and a nephew, 14, were also killed in shootings, Rivas-Rosa said.

Her son, Leonel Rivas brought the little girl to the United States four years ago, hoping to save her from the violence, with the hopes of her going to college and having a better life.

“He said, ‘I am leaving,’” Rivas-Rosa said. “We aren’t safe here. They’ll kill you here like you don’t even matter.”

Villanueva was in a parked car on 103rd street when a bullet from a nearby shooting struck her in the head August 11.

Rivas-Rosa travels once a year to visit her son and grandchildren. The shooting happened while she was in Jacksonville.

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