Imagine being a little kid and watching your father shoot your mother and grandmother.
Grand Prairie police say that's what three little ones endured Tuesday in the 2000 block of Eva Street.
Latoya McGowan, 24, and her mother were found wounded at the address, and both were taken to Methodist Dallas Medical Center. McGowan died later.
"During the investigation, it was determined that the suspect shot the mother of his children, as well as her mother," Det. Mark Beseda said on Thursday. "During the shooting, the children were present and witnessed (the) suspect shoot both mom and grandma."
The father, Christopher Darrell Jefferson, 31, was arrested Thursday in Dallas.
Gilbert Grimaldo, 43, was convicted of breaking into his ex-girlfriend's apartment and holding a knife to her throat while her three children, 13, 6 and 4, watched. She escaped by jumping off her second-floor balcony.
When he was 16, Grimaldo was convicted of murder for holding down a man while he was stabbed. He served 18 years of a 25-year sentence.
A Denny's waitress was stabbed repeatedly early Tuesday while working her shift.
Police say she had been speaking with her husband in the Irving restaurant, and they believe he took the knife to her.
The 61-year-old woman, who Irving police did not identify, remained in serious condition Tuesday at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas.
Police arrested the husband, Thomas Parker, 54, of Irving (shown here) as he tried to leave the area.
As Christmas approached in 2005, Danielle LeBlanc told relatives and friends that she was ending her relationship with her abusive boyfriend. They tried to talk her out of doing it in person, but she insisted she could handle it.
A few days later, LeBlanc, 22, was found strangled to death in the bedroom of the southwest Arlington apartment that she shared with Don Wayne Moody. Her 2-year-old daughter was soiled and appeared to have been left to fend for herself.
Within a week, Moody, 26, the suspect in the case, had killed himself in a Laredo motel room before police could capture him.
Channeling their grief into a determination to help other families avoid similar anguish, LeBlanc's siblings organized a memorial concert the following spring to raise money for domestic violence programs. Now in its seventh year, the Danielle LeBlanc Memorial Benefit Concert for Battered Women and Children will be from 5 p.m. Saturday to 2 a.m. Sunday at J. Gilligan's Bar and Grill in Arlington. Admission is $10.
Some of the bands set to play on stages indoors and outdoors are Egress, Rhymin and Stealin, Idol Job and Sally Majestic.
J. Gilligan's owner Randy Ford said last year that he hoped the concert becomes a tradition at his establishment. "It's a win-win for everybody," he said. "It's a tragic story, but what a wonderful way to make things better."
Brenda Jackson, executive director of I Can Still Shine, a domestic violence program in Grapevine, wrote in a letter that in 16 years she's never found a family more committed to ending domestic violence.
"For myself and my ministry, literally hundreds upon hundreds of moms and kids have been helped by their donations and support," Jackson wrote.
