COMPTON — Nearly two weeks ago Manuel Melgoza and Angela Garcia, the parents of two students attending Jefferson Elementary School, were sitting outside their home contemplating on moving from the high-intensity environment known as the city of Compton to Downey or to Oregon — to be closer to his twin brother — when a lone assailant walked up to the couple and opened fire.

Melgoza, 35, who was shot in the torso — the bullet piercing his heart — was transported to a local hospital where he later died of his injuries, while Garcia, shot in the leg, was also transported to the hospital but was later released. She and their four kids — ages 14, 10, 7 and 6 — are currently staying in Downey with a relative.

“From what I know, him and his wife had just finished eating dinner and they decided to step out and sit on their front porch and they were talking about the selling house because their daughter goes to a school in Downey,” said Melgoza’s twin brother Alejandro about the account given to him by Garcia. “They decided to get up and go back into the house because my sister-in-law’s back was hurting so they both got up and as they were going into the house, my brother took a turn to look back and that’s when [the assailant] started shooting at them. I asked her ‘did he say anything to you?’ and she said ‘no, nothing, he just started shooting.’”

On Sept. 17 around 8:55 p.m. in the 13200 block of Mona Boulevard “the victims were standing in the front yard of a residence when a male, black adult suspect approached them on foot,” said the most recent Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department press release dated Sept. 18. “Without provocation, the suspect produced a handgun and began firing at the victims, striking the male in the torso and the female in the leg. The suspect then ran from the location to west bound Stockwell Drive and out of view.”

When Alejandro was initially alerted by his cousin that there had been a shooting in front of Melgoza’s house, “I started panicking,” he said. “I couldn’t get a hold of him and his wife on the cell phone. That’s when we decided to call his oldest daughter and she is the one that told us that her parents got shot.”

His cousin, he said, then rushed to the hospital promising Alejandro that he would inform him about their condition as soon as he knew something. But frantic, he constantly called. Upon the fifth call or so, he said, “that’s when my cousin told me that [Melgoza] didn’t make it … I was nervous and shaking and my wife was trying to calm me down.”

The flood of emotions, he added, were intensified from feeling helpless. Alejandro, who has lived in Oregon for the past 15 years, could not be present during his brother’s final moments.

“Everyday I would get out of work, first I would call my wife to tell her I’m coming home, I’d get home kiss my wife, kiss my two daughters, go outside play with my puppy and my daughters and then call my brother,” said a tearful Alejandro. “Now I’m going to call my wife, come home kiss my wife and daughters, play with my puppy and my little girls but one thing I’m not going to be able to do is call my brother again. For me that was a big thing was to hear from my brother. If I could not see my brother I could at least hear his voice and I am not going to be able to do that anymore.”

Ironically in every conversation the twin brothers had, Alejandro always tried to convince Melgoza to either move to Oregon or to Downey in hopes of him finding a better life. And on the day of his murder, it was the very conversation that Melgoza and Garcia were said to have had prior to the shooting.

In fact, it was not the first, Alejandro said. “My sister-in-law would say we should try it out over there with your brother or because the oldest daughter goes to school in Downey, let’s go over to Downey then,” he said. “They were opening their options and trying to open up the door to any other place but here [Compton].”

“We were born and raised here in Compton and hearing the ambulance, hearing the police, hearing the helicopter on a daily basis, they were just getting tired of it,” he added. “The lifestyle that’s around here, I’m not saying that it’s bad but it’s just something that he didn’t want to live around anymore … I’m not mad at Compton, but right now I don’t like Compton anymore. I was born and raised here but that’s it. I wish my brother would have listened to me and he would still be right here with me.”

Said Compton Unified School District Board member Joel Estrada: “The father that was murdered was an elementary schoolmate of my older brother and my mother knew him and his family well,” he said. “The young man’s family is simply devastated. [Some of] his surviving children attend Jefferson Elementary and are part of our Compton family. … We do not know exactly what created this horrible tragedy. But we know what the result was — children were left fatherless and scarred in ways no child should ever be scarred.”

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department “are actively working the case,” said Sgt. Kenneth Clark of the Homicide Bureau on Sept. 24. “We have no additional leads other than what we had the day of the shooting.”

The Sheriff’s Department has not indicated a motive for the shooting, nor have they suggested that there were any gang, drug or racial motivations.

Compton’s School District Chief of Police Hourie Taylor confirmed that psychologists and counselors were on site the day following the incident to address student needs and that a press release from the Sheriff’s Department had been sent, but would not comment any further on the incident. A cousin of the two students also attends Jefferson Elementary.

“When I received notification of this ghastly event, my heart immediately grieved for the Melgoza/Garcia family,” said CUSD Board member Micah Ali. “As we continue supporting this family in this time of bereavement, I would ask that all truly offer prayer and supplication to your divine being of choice, on behalf of this family.”

Alejandro said he is turning to his religious faith for a sense of justice.

“I just want justice because this person that did this to my brother destroyed me personally because that was my twin. … Attitude-wise, physical-wise, we were the same. He tore out a piece of my heart … just because somebody thought ‘oh, he’s in my way,’” Alejandro said. “All you did was take God’s place taking somebody and that’s not right. I’m going to let God take care of that guy because God is a loving God and he does not like people that try to take his place and take somebody else’s life.”

Funeral services were held Sept. 25 at the Douglass Family Mortuaries in Lynwood, according to Alejandro.