Five young children in Arizona are facing the holiday season without their mother after a fatal shooting and subsequent standoff in Phoenix earlier this week.
Selena Felix, 30, was found dead outside her home at around 3:30 a.m. on Dec. 22, according to the Phoenix Police Department. She had been shot multiple times and was pronounced dead at the scene.
As investigators searched the area for suspicious activity, they ran the license plate of a vehicle and learned its driver had been stopped by officers about an hour earlier. Police say the driver, identified as 23-year-old Alexis Torres, fled during that traffic stop and then barricaded himself inside a nearby home.
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Authorities attempted to negotiate with Torres, but during the standoff officers reported hearing a single gunshot. Torres was later found dead from a self-inflicted wound, police said. Officers also located a 3-year-old child inside Torres’s vehicle.
Investigators said it took another hour to connect Torres to Felix’s killing, and nearly three more hours to identify the child after a family member reported the toddler missing from Felix’s home. Police now allege Torres took the child from Felix on the night of Dec. 21 and killed her amid a custody dispute, despite court documents stating he is not the child’s father.
Felix’s family described her on a GoFundMe page as “a loving mother, a caring sister, and a friend to many,” adding that her five children are “struggling to understand why their mother is no longer with them.”
Police said the investigation remains ongoing.
