Tonight, two children in Bullet Tree are without mother or father after their mother Ima Landero was brutally killed by their father 44-year-old Augustine Gonzalez.
Ima had just gotten off work at "Te Gusta" bar in San Ignacio and decided to stop off at Legends 2000 which was on her way home.
What happened there is a shocking crime that tonight once again brings to light the need to break cycles of violence in intimate partner relationships.
And tonight, while we can't know if Ima Landero was trying to leave the partner that her family describes as jealous and aggressive, we do know that he ended her life before she could have left. Cherisse Halsall reports:
Ima Azucena Ladero arrived at Legends 2000 shortly after midnight. She was here to unwind, to dance, and to take a drink after work. Not even an hour later the mother of two was dead, savagely stabbed to death by her partner who eyewitnesses say stood over her and watched her die on a bathroom floor, bathed in her blood.
It's a shocking crime that the owner of the bar has said his security guards couldn't have prevented:
Ramon Galvez, Owner, Legends 2000
"It is a crime that to me was gonna happen because this guy was looking for this young last at her work, over at other places, and then he came here. He came with the intent to do harm to this young lady. It's something that it could have been at a taco stand it could have been at a church. This guy was willing to put this lady in, to harm this young lady."
"When he came she, somebody must have told her that the common law or whatever was here and so she stepped into the bathroom thinking that he won't see her."
"What we saw on the camera is that the guy put his shirt on his head just his face was showing and he had a knife on the side and he walked pass about 4-5 people that was standing right here in front of the bathroom and he walked right inside that bathroom just to kill that young lady. Not even 2 minutes later did the security guards are calling me and say 'boss, somebody is beating somebody in the lady's bathroom, come." and by the time I reach to the lady's bathroom and I look into the cubicle, the guy is standing up and the girl is laying down bleeding and he is stabbing himself and reacting like he was... and I tell the guys that young lady looks like she had blood coming out from her neck, on the stomach side - it was a gruesome scene right there. I told him, I said mein what you did mein get the hell out of there and he responded. He said kill me, kill me I done dead already, kill me."
"He stood behind the door and he's a big guy and we couldn't push that door. He stood there and he put all his strength, all his weight on that door and we couldn't get that door because the door opens from the inside and he stood right there pushing the door and we couldn't get that guy out."
Ima's family is still in disbelief. They say that her partner had threatened her earlier in the day causing them to panic and try to reach her. Still, they couldn't have expected that today they'd be preparing for a burial.
Luisita Aguirrez, Niece
"I never thought something like that would happen, never. As far as I know they were like a team. She spoke to him and said Well I will work for both of us because he was not working and then he needed stuff for his cycle, for everything and then she works and use to help him. But I don't know what went on that last night when that thing happened. I don't know what went on. If I would be him I would not do it because they have two kids, two small kids, one is 8 and the other one is 10 and its so sad when they ask about their mom. The little girl was close to her dad, but the boy was close to her mo. She worked to give her kids everything."
"I still am shocked, I don't know why he did it, because when it comes to that he wasn't a good person too, because he could be in a bar drinking with another woman and could be looking at him and he just don't care and she never did anything like that."
"When it comes to jealousy he gets very very aggressive and she knew that but I think that woman was very in love with him, that's why she never left him."
Reporter
"This wasn't the first incident?"
Luisita Aguirrez, Niece
"In that term, no."
And Luisita says that Ima had been warned recently but even early on in her relationship that she's put herself in a perilous situation.
Luisita Aguirrez, Niece
"Everytime, every time even I spoke to her, her dad. After being diseased her dad even told her to leave that man, because one day it will come to a reason that man would have kill her and she still doesn't believe or she, I don't know."
The family says it's a cycle of violence that played out in the couple's home often in front of their children but on Friday when Ima's life came to a sudden and tragic end it fell to 40 year bar and nightclub veteran Ramon Galvez to confront a situation unlike any he'd ever seen.
Ramon Galvez, Owner, Legends 2000
"To me it's jealousy, he has a girl that works at a bar, so he goes to the bar where the girl works, he's going to see men talking to the girl and sitting with the girl and drinking. You can't have a lady that works in a bar and be a jealous man. That guy came to kill because he didn't cut her on her face or no no that was a serious stab."
The question now is what happens to Ima's children? Their mother is dead and their father is going to prison for what is expected to be a very long time. Who will pick up the pieces where they are concerned?
Luisita Aguirrez, Niece
"If I start to work because I'm planning to work right now and if I start to work, first God, I think I would give a hand to those kids, because two of them - mom is gone, dad is not going to come back, so they will need a lot of everything; love, care, responsibilities and my aunt cant do too much, because she has a sick one inside the house, so I don't think she would be able to go ahead with them. But if I start working I would love to help."
Again, Gonzalez is the father of Ima Landero's two children. v Ima's family is also looking for Augustine Gonzalez's motorcycle which they say was stolen during the deadly altercation at the club. They hope to reclaim it and possibly sell it to help support the children.
