Beatriz Mucino was stunned when she heard that the cousin she called “Little Vicky,” an obedient girl who treated elders with respect, was arrested in connection with the shooting of an 8-year-old.
“I don’t know how she got into this mess. I think she is just the wrong person in the wrong place at the wrong time and was caught in the middle of it,” Mucino, 37, said of Victoria Esparza.
Esparza, 19, and her fiancé, Daniel Steven Lujan, 20, are being held on suspicion of attempted murder in the drive-by shooting of Sierra Moore on Friday evening.
The third-grader was walking with an aunt in the Curtis Park neighborhood when she was shot. Police believe she was not the intended victim.
In interviews broadcast Tuesday night with local TV stations, Lujan said he was trying to protect himself and his family and “didn’t mean to hit that little girl.”
He said he was in his Ford SUV with Esparza and their 8-month-old daughter, Dynasty, when three men approached and one of them pulled a gun.
Lujan said he whipped out his own gun and started shooting.
Moore was hit with one bullet that pierced her lung and came out through her back, said her grandfather, Michael Moore. The girl is recovering at Denver Health Medical Center.
“She is in pain, but she is improving day to day,” said Moore, 52. “She is such a sweetheart, and she is holding up real good.”
Moore, a production supervisor at CoorsTek in Golden, said he doesn’t know Lujan or Esparza, but he feels bad for their families. “They’re going to be missing them. Their little girl will be away from them. It is terrible.”
Mucino, who moved from Denver to northern California in 2003, heard about the shooting right after it happened, she said in a telephone interview. “I’m like, “Gee, another one, and it was even sadder to hear that my family was involved in something like that.”
Esparza’s mother is Mucino’s cousin, and the women frequently socialized when Esparza was growing up.
As a youngster, Esparza was a good-natured child, said Mucino, who has a 17-year-old daughter. “We were always around her, and she was always respectful. She would mail thank-you notes when she had birthday parties. Most little girls don’t do that. And she was very obedient.”
She loves animals and trained at a tech school to assist at a veterinarian’s office.
Lujan came into Esparza’s life at least five years ago. “He was just a quiet kid, and he was always there,” said Mucino.
Police have said they don’t believe the shooting was gang related.
Lujan never said he was a gangster, but one look at the bull tattooed on his face and the sweeping scrawl inked into his neck was all it took for Mucino to assume the boy ran with a bad crowd.
“When I saw him and his tattoos, I’m like, ‘Oh, my goodness.’ I don’t know him, but I would assume he was” a gang member.
In October, Lujan and Esparza had a baby, and when Mucino came to visit the Montbello home where Victoria — an only child — lived with her mother, the girl was preparing to move in with Lujan.
Esparza spent her days at home, taking care of the baby. “They just stay home all day. During the day, she would e-mail me pictures of her little girl sleeping.”
Tom McGhee: 303-954-1671 or tmcghee@denverpost.com
