Pregnant woman, 22, and her unborn child are killed – 24 hours after her cousin was murdered

A pregnant woman was shot to death as she slept in bed at a Connecticut home early Monday, just hours after her cousin was slain in a shooting on a nearby street.

Karla Bermudez, 22, was struck multiple times after gunshots were fired through the second-floor window of a large multi-family home on the corner of Washington Terrace and Washington Place at around 5:30am this morning.

Police say Bermudez’s boyfriend, who was lying next to her in bed at the time, was the intended target of the shooting. He too was struck by gunfire but suffered non-life-threatening injuries.

Bermudez, who was 23 weeks pregnant, was rushed to St. Vincent’s Medical Center, but despite lifesaving efforts, she was pronounced dead shortly after arriving. Her unborn child, a baby girl, also did not survive.

Her death came just over 24 hours after her cousin, 24-year-old Heriberto Marquez, was found dead by police having suffered a single gunshot wound to the head, just four blocks away.

Bermudez’s boyfriend, who has not been publicly named by police, is reportedly not cooperating with investigators. He suffered a gunshot to the buttocks and is recovering in hospital.

Bridgeport Police Capt. Brian Fitzgerald said that currently there is no evidence to suggest the fatal shootings of Bermudez and Marquez are connected, calling their violent deaths ‘an unfortunate coincidence’.

Police said witnesses observed two or men stood outside the Washington Avenue home at 5:35am Monday and began firing into the second floor window.

‘I heard shots and I knew it wasn’t firecrackers,’ a neighbor told News 12. ‘I said “call the police, call the police.”’

By the time police arrived, the group of men had disappeared and the street was littered with empty bullet shell casings. It’s currently unclear how many shots were fired, and how many of the suspects observed at the home were armed.

Bermudez did not live at the home where the shooting happened and had only been staying over for one night to visit her boyfriend.

Police did not say if any arrests were made, but that they are investigating the incident as a homicide.

Two other adults were in the home at the time of the shooting but were not injured, police said.

Marquez, meanwhile, was found on the ground with a gunshot wound to his head at the intersection of Iranistan Avenue and Hanover Street early Sunday. He was pronounce by paramedics at the scene.

‘So now the grandmother lost two grandchildren in less than two, three days,’ Marquez’s mother, Elizabeth Delgado, told News 12. ‘Everybody is devastated. I thought it was a dream but when I woke up, reality hit me and it’s no dream. It’s no dream, he’s gone.’

The gun violence came after a string of shootings in Bridgeport over the weekend that left three people dead. Late Friday night, 25-year-old George John, of Shelton, was also shot to death in Bridgeport.

‘Involved individuals who knew individuals shooting each other. Some who know each other. Some who lost friends, family members, and relatives at the scene, who at this moment will not even assist police,’ Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim said.

Bridgeport has recorded 14 murders so far this year, exceeding the dozen suffered around the same time in 2019, CBS2 reported.

Delgado says she’s praying whoever is behind her son and niece’s slaying is caught. She says that’s the only way her family can begin to heal.

‘If anybody knows anything, say something… if it was your child, you’d want someone to say something,’ she says.

Anyone with information is asked to call the Bridgeport Police Department Tips Line at 203-576-TIPS.