A beloved fitness influencer and mother of seven was gunned down alongside her new date—just days after publicly discussing her separation from her husband—who allegedly pulled the trigger in a fit of jealousy.
Gloria Zamora, 40, and her date, 43-year-old Hector Garduno, were shot and killed in a restaurant parking lot in Fontana, California, late Saturday night, according to police and family members.
Her estranged husband, Thomas Alberto Tamayo Lizarraga, is accused of ambushing the couple before being fatally shot himself by an off-duty deputy who happened to witness the tragic scene unfold.
BREAKUP TURNED DEADLY
The deadly confrontation took place outside a sushi restaurant around 9:40 p.m., just an hour after Zamora and Garduno had arrived, Fontana police confirmed.
Zamora had recently gone public about her breakup on her podcast HERizon, revealing she was in the middle of a divorce from Lizarraga. Police believe the separation may have triggered the deadly attack.
“They were going through a divorce, that led to this,” Officer Steve Reed told KABC-TV.
“We don’t know how he knew where she was.”
DEPUTY STOPS KILLER
A San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputy driving nearby saw the attack unfold and quickly intervened. The off-duty officer made a U-turn, confronted Lizarraga, and fatally shot him at the scene.
All three individuals were pronounced dead in the restaurant parking lot.
A FAMILY SHATTERED
Zamora was a mother of seven, ranging in age from 8 to 24, and had built a following of over 150,000 on Instagram. She was known for promoting women’s empowerment through fitness and self-love.
“My mom was senselessly taken from us,” her daughter Jazlynne Zamora wrote in a heartbreaking GoFundMe post.
“She was murdered by my stepdad Tomas in an act of unimaginable violence.”
“She was a light in her community. She always said, ‘Women can do anything they set their minds to,’ and she lived those words every day.”
Garduno, a father of four, was remembered in a separate fundraiser as a “devoted and hardworking man taken far too soon.”
RISING TREND OF TARGETED ATTACKS
Zamora and Garduno’s deaths are part of a troubling trend of influencers being targeted. In recent months:
- Valeria Márquez was shot during a livestream at her beauty salon in Mexico (May).
- Jesús Sarmiento was killed on camera during a livestream in Venezuela (June).
- Grishall Disner was gunned down in a bar restroom in Mexico City (February).
ONGOING INVESTIGATION
Fontana police are continuing to investigate the double murder-suicide. They have not yet commented further on how Lizarraga found the couple or whether there had been previous threats or domestic violence reports.
The off-duty deputy involved in the shooting is cooperating with investigators.
As two families mourn and 11 children are left without a parent, the community is left stunned by what police called “an unimaginable act of domestic violence.”
“Justice won’t bring her back,” one supporter wrote on social media, “but Gloria deserves to be remembered as the fierce, loving woman she was.”
GoFundMe pages have been launched to support both families in the wake of the tragedy.
