The family of the mother killed [music] last week in the Pocket Neighborhood is pleading with whoever is responsible to turn themselves in. >> Yeah. Her family says [music] the victim is a 26-year-old loving mother of two young children. ABC 10's [music] Roxanna Leas has their emotional plea for help. >> On a late winter night in Sacramento, a woman's life ended in a well-lit parking lot while a community bustled around her. Witnesses later reported a single moment of chaos. a sequence of events that transformed a routine evening at a shopping center into a homicide investigation. The victim was identified as Chity Spockman, 26, a resident of the city with long-standing ties to the neighborhood and responsibilities that anchored her to the community. Details surrounding her presence at that location, the identities of those involved, and the motivations behind the attack remained unclear in the hours and days that followed. Law enforcement cordined off the scene. Forensic teams processed evidence and questions mounted. Was this a targeted assault or a chance encounter with violence? As investigators pieced together fragments of phone records, surveillance footage, and witness statements, the truth began to surface in uneven shadows. Valentine's Day is supposed to be about love, about warmth, about the people who matter most to you. But on the night of February 14th, 2024 in Sacramento, California, that day became something else entirely for one family. It became the night they lost someone they could never get back. It was around 11:15 at night. The Lake Crest Village Shopping Center, sitting right at the corner of Floren Road and Green Haven Drive in a neighborhood called The Pocket, was winding down for the night. Most of the stores were closed. The parking lot was quieter than usual. It was just one of those ordinary late evenings in a regular part of the city. And then a gunshot broke the silence. Within minutes, people were calling 911. Multiple callers, panicked voices describing what they heard, what they saw, trying to make sense of the chaos erupting around them. Some were hiding. Some were searching for the people they came with. The fear in that parking lot was real. Sacramento police responded fast. They sealed off sections of the lot. Officers moved in, established a perimeter, and began working the scene the way they're trained to. Fire and medical units arrived right behind them. What they found when they got there, it changed everything. A young woman had been shot. She was rushed to the hospital. But the wounds she suffered were too severe. That night at that hospital, she was pronounced dead. Her name was Chity Spockman. She was 26 years old. And somewhere across the city, two young children, an 8-year-old boy and a 6-year-old girl, had just lost their mother. I think about that moment a lot. Because while officers were putting up crime scene tape and investigators were doing their jobs, those two kids didn't know yet. They were probably asleep, safe, unaware that their whole world had just shifted beneath them. Life can be so painfully unfair sometimes. That night, a commercial parking lot became a crime scene, and a family story became one of grief, questions, and a desperate search for answers. Before we talk about the investigation, before we get into the arrests, the suspects, the courtrooms, I want to stop and talk about who Chity Spockman actually was. Because in cases like this, it's so easy for a person to become just a name in a headline. And she was so much more than that. Chity was 26 years old, a Sacramento woman, a mother, a daughter, a neighbor. She was raising two children on her own, a son who was eight, and a daughter who was six. If you're a parent, you know what that means. That is your whole life right there. Every decision you make, every dollar you earn, every late night and early morning, it's all for them. And Chity was building something. She wasn't sitting still. She was enrolled at Sacramento City College, taking business courses, working toward a future, a better future. Not just for herself, but for those kids. She wanted to give them more. That's the kind of person she was. Her family described a woman who was involved, committed, present. She showed up for her children. She showed up for her community. She was doing what so many young parents do, juggling everything, sacrificing everything, trying to climb. After news of her death spread, her father came forward. He talked to local media. You could hear the pain in the way people described him. A man trying to hold himself together while the world asked him to explain who his daughter was to strangers. That's a weight no parent should ever carry. Within the week, more than 100 people gathered at the very parking lot where Chity was killed. 100 people. That doesn't happen for someone who didn't matter. That happens for someone who touched lives. Family members, friends, neighbors, all standing together in that same space, demanding that the world pay attention. They wore colors for her. They brought balloons, heart-shaped ones, because it was Valentine's week. They placed them near where she had fallen. They stood in the same spots where investigators had collected evidence just days before and they said out loud what needed to be said. This woman deserved justice. Chity Spockman was not just a case number. She was a mother trying to build a life and she deserved so much more time to do it. Now, here's what we know about the night itself. And I want to be honest with you. There are still parts of this story that haven't been fully answered publicly. Investigators held a lot back during the early weeks, which is normal in active homicide cases. But let me walk you through what we do know. Chity was at the Lake Crest Village Shopping Center that night. It was late after 11 p.m. Most of the businesses had already closed. The details of exactly why she was there at that hour have never been officially released. That's still part of the private case record. What we know is that at least one shot was fired. Multiple people heard it. Multiple people called 911 almost simultaneously. And when police arrived, they found Chity with a gunshot wound. Paramedics rushed her to the hospital. She didn't survive. The crime scene work that followed was thorough. Officers collected shell casings. They mapped potential bullet trajectories. They canvased the area for witnesses and gathered whatever surveillance footage existed from the stores around that parking lot. Witness statements came in describing what they saw. Vehicles moving through the lot, people in the area before and after the shot. But here's the thing. None of those forensic details were released publicly. And that matters because in the days and weeks that followed, the community was hungry for answers and the silence from law enforcement was hard. Chity's family stepped forward. They spoke to media. They urged anyone with information to come forward. They weren't just grieving in private. They were actively trying to help find who did this to her. And almost immediately, something else started happening. People reached out to help the children. GoFundMe pages went up. Cash App links were shared because two kids had just lost their mom. And people understood that regardless of the investigation, those children needed support right now. It's in moments like this that you really see the heart of a community. People who never met Chity, who only learned her name through the news, were already giving, already showing up. That's something, but justice that was still weeks away. For nearly a month, the community waited. And waiting, when you want answers, feels like torture. Every day without an arrest is another day where it seems like nothing is being done. The family was vocal about that. Advocacy groups raised their voices. People wanted to know why is this taking so long. There were cameras in that shopping center. There were witnesses. What was happening? What was happening, it turns out, was that investigators were quietly following a trail that led them far outside Sacramento. On March 12th, 2024, almost exactly four weeks after the shooting, law enforcement made their move. Sacramento police working alongside federal agents from the FBI arrested two suspects. Not in California. In New York City, the two people taken into custody were 25-year-old Isaiah James and 25-year-old Ayana Burgos. Let that sink in for a moment. Someone killed a young mother in a Sacramento parking lot and within weeks they were on the other side of the country. That tells you something. That tells you this wasn't random panic. Someone was trying to get away. Family members came forward after the arrests with information that made this case even more heartbreaking. They identified Isaiah James as Chity's estranged husband and they identified Ayana Burgos as his girlfriend. Now, law enforcement never officially confirmed the personal relationships at that stage of the investigation. They were careful about that because the case was still live and they didn't want to compromise anything. But the family statements painted a picture that many people instantly recognized. A woman separated from her husband killed on Valentine's Day. It's almost impossible to hear that and not feel the weight of what may have happened. There's another detail that hit people hard. According to family accounts, the arrests happened on the same day as Chity's funeral. The same day her loved ones were gathering to say their final goodbyes. Police were placing handcuffs on the people they believed were responsible for her death. Law enforcement didn't officially confirm that timing, but if true, I don't even have the words for how much that means. Justice and grief arriving in the same breath. Isaiah James and Ayana Burgos were facing extradition back to Sacramento. The legal process was just beginning. When arrests happen in a case like this, there's a moment, just a brief one, where it feels like things might be okay, like some kind of balance has been restored. But grief doesn't work that way, and justice doesn't move that fast. The legal road ahead for this case was long. James and Burgos were being brought back to Sacramento to face homicide charges. Prosecutors would need to lay out their full case. Defense attorneys would challenge the evidence. Pre-trial hearings, motions, scheduling. The court system moves at its own pace and families are left waiting again just for different reasons. As for motive, law enforcement kept that close to their chest. Officially, they said the motive was still under investigation. Family members mentioned that there had been tension between Chity and Isaiah James in the time before her death. arguments, conflict, the kind of things that sometimes escalate in ways no one ever imagines they will. But none of that was confirmed in official records. And it's important that we let the courts do their work. What I keep coming back to, though, is the bigger picture. A 26-year-old mother was killed in a public parking lot on Valentine's Day. She was at Sacramento City College. She was raising two children. She had a plan. She had a future. And someone took all of that from her and from those kids. Her son is eight. Her daughter is six. Those children are going to grow up knowing they lost their mother when they were small. They're going to have to piece together who she was from the memories of the people who loved her. From photos, from stories, from the community that stepped up to support them in the wake of the worst thing that ever happened to their family. That's the real legacy here. Not the crime, not the arrests, not the courtroom drama. It's those two children and the community that refused to let Chity Spockman be forgotten. People gathered. They brought balloons. They demanded answers. They donated. They showed up over and over again because she mattered. Because her life had value. Because a young black woman going to school and raising her kids in Sacramento deserved to grow old. I hope that wherever this case ends up in the courtroom, her children one day know the full truth. I hope they know their mother was loved, was fought for, and was never forgotten. And I hope that cases like hers remind all of us to hold the people we love a little tighter because none of us ever really knows how much time we have. Thank you for watching. If this story moved you, share it. Let people know her name. Her name was Chity Spockman. End of script.