Trackdown: Help find Jocelyn Sarabia's killers
It's been six weeks since someone gunned down a hard-working young woman outside her Garland home. Police hope the public will help track down her killer.
Jocelyn Sarabia, 20, had just returned home from work around 1:30 a.m. when she was shot and killed in the front yard of her home on Linda drive. Police believe robbery the likely reason behind the actions that led to her murder.
Garland police are still searching for at least three people, one who drove the car and two with a gun, who approached the 20-year-old woman and killed her.
A memorial now stands in the front yard where Sarabia lived and died during what Garland Homicide Detective Gary Sweet feels was an attempted robbery.
“There’s nothing taken, but there’s some things that happened here at the scene that I think might have stopped them from the robbery and caused them to shoot her and run,” the detective explained.
“Thinking maybe she had the night deposit or if they just saw a female driving alone at night in a car and thought she might be an easy target,” Sweet speculated. “She sat in her car for a little bit, actually. She was on the phone with a friend all the way home from work. She saw them. She saw two guys that were walking down here and made a comment about them. Her friend asked her, ‘Are you worried about it?’ And she said, ‘Nah, I’m not too worried.’”
Sarabia got out of her car after her phone call, and her killers started going towards her. Neighbors’ video systems show the two men police say were part of the murder running towards her. The senseless murder was not in the camera’s view.
“We pick them up several seconds later running, sprinting actually back down to the car,” Sweet said.
Video shows a Nissan, possibly a Sentra or Altima, at the crime scene. It’s the same car Sweet says followed Sarabia from near her convenience store clerk job along Forest to her home on Linda Drive near Dairy Road.
"I think she may have tried to resist them," the detective said. "I need to know who these guys are."
Sweet hopes the video will help identify the pair. One person was in shorts and a hoodie. The other was wearing an unusual shirt that has reflective material on one sleeve only.
“The way they walk, the way they dress and might recognize them,” Sweet said. “I’ve got daughters so I can’t imagine what the family's going through and just not knowing.”
Garland police hope as much as a $15,000 reward will shake someone's memory. Anyone with information can remain anonymous and call Garland Crime Stoppers at (972) 272-8477.
For several of the cold cases, police are hanging their hopes for an arrest in the public's eyes and surveillance video. They are now turning to FOX 4's Shaun Rabb to help ‘Trackdown' the criminals.
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