MINNEAPOLIS — On the doorsteps of 31-year-old Kyla O'Neal's apartment Tuesday night, balloons and candlelight drove out the darkness that's kept Katina up since her pregnant daughter was shot and killed.
"I got to go the rest of my life without my baby," said Katina.
Police say O'Neal's fiancé, 32-year-old Donte McCray, shot her outside the Amazon warehouse in Lakeville Sunday night.
"My sister didn't deserve that," said O'Neal's older sister, Samantha Scott.
Katina says the problems started with infidelity, which she says McCray admitted to when they visited just hours before her daughter was killed.
"He was like, 'Well, Mom, it's a baby.' I said, 'So you done cheated; you got another child?' He like, 'Yeah,'" explained Katina.
Katina says after a physical altercation that afternoon, the couple then went their separate ways.
O'Neal went for a drive.
"She said, 'I want to go alone,' so I'm thinking, 'She's going to vent," said Katina.
Her mother says it was her caring heart that led her back to McCray.
"I should've just told her, 'Girl, I'm going anyway.' You know?" said Katina.
"He was on his way to work and she took him to work — even though all that that they did there, she still went and picked him up and took him to work," said Scott.
That's where she and investigators say things took a turn.
"He went in the back of her car in her back door and grabbed her gun out of her purse and aimed it at her and shot her," explained Scott.
O'Neal was rushed to the hospital where she later died. Her baby, Messiah, is now fighting for his life.
"No brain activity; he's not breathing on his own," said Katina.
Now, candles shine a light in the hope of saving others from this family's darkness.
"Domestic violence, if you're involved in it with anyone like this, just get away," said Scott. "Stay away or leave silently. Don't even say your plans; just find an escape."
The family says doctors are running tests on Messiah and they will know on Friday whether he'll have to be taken off life support.
A GoFundMe has also been set up to assist Katina as she takes care of O'Neal's other three kids.
If you or someone you know is in need of a way out of a domestic abuse situation call the Domestic Abuse Hotline at 1-800-799-7233.
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