‘It was so bad’: Neighbors share what happened when a Myrtle Beach mom was shot on Monday
Sebastiana Cardona was babysitting a three-year-old child Monday evening when she heard gunshots outside her home in downtown Myrtle Beach.
Just after 5 p.m., a woman was on her way to Cardona’s home to pick up her child but was allegedly shot and killed by a man, her ex-partner. The coroner’s office identified the woman as Betzabeth Meza, 26, of Mexico.
After the shooting, the man turned the gun on himself, police said in a release on Tuesday.
Cardona tearfully recalled Monday night’s events, explaining that she was told to stay inside by officers after it all went down.
Myrtle Beach police officers arrived on the scene around 5:30 p.m. according to spokesperson Cpl. Thomas Vest, about 14 minutes after a neighbor, Juan Carlos Zavala Rivera, called them.
Rivera, who has lived in the area for about four years and works as an electrician, called the police after hearing the gunshots and heard a woman banging on his door begging for help.
He said he rushed his kids upstairs, which is where he says he saw the man shoot himself.
“It was so bad,” Rivera said. “It was so bad.”
The man’s identity is not known at this time, but he is in the hospital in critical condition, according to a release sent out by the Myrtle Beach Police Department on Tuesday.
The police are investigating this as a domestic incident due to Meza’s previous relationship with the man. According to her neighbors, they had been separated for about four months before the shooting.
The child is safe and was unharmed during the incident, the police said. It’s unclear who will take care of the child.
“We ask that our community join us in offering prayers for the families during this time,” the police said in a release.
One neighbor, Jeanie Freeman, said that shootings in the neighborhood were unfortunately all too common. For the past 30 years, Freeman watched a retirement community where kids could walk freely on the streets go very “downhill.”
“I can’t even walk around anymore,” she said. “It’s nothing like it used to be thirty years ago.”
This story was originally published December 20, 2022 at 1:26 PM.