Teen mum was cuddling her baby son during execution by suspected cartel hitmen

“What kind of monster would do this?” the family of a 16-year-old mother and her baby has asked, after they were both shot in the head.

Mum Alissa Parraz, 16, was still clutching her baby boy, Nycholas Nolan Parraz, when they were found in a ditch. Picture: Facebook / Kelani Taitingfong

Heartbreaking images show a 16-year-old mum lovingly cuddling her baby boy — the same position they were in when they were among six executed by suspected cartel hitmen in California.

Mum Alissa Parraz was still clutching 10-month-old son Nycholas Nolan Parraz when they were found in a ditch outside the shot-up home in Goshen early Monday, officials and family said.

Both had been shot in the head while trying to flee what the local sheriff described as a “cartel-style execution” at a house raided just a week earlier on a narcotics-related warrant.

“I can’t wrap my head around what kind of monster would do this,” said the baby’s great-grandfather, Samuel Pina.

“I can’t understand who can just kill a baby like that. … How can someone be a monster and do that? I cannot comprehend it,” he told KFSN.

Officials said that the young mum was 17, but her own mum said her “beautiful daughter” was only 16.

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The teen mum and her baby son were both shot in the head as suspected cartel hitmen killed six. Picture: Facebook / Kelani Taitingfong

“My heart is broken I am lost for words,” Shyla Pina wrote in a series of heartbreaking posts, saying she “never got to meet in person” her “handsome grandson”.

Samuel Pina said Parraz and her baby had been living with her father’s side of the family in Goshen — and her dad’s uncle, her dad’s cousin, and her grandmother and great-grandmother were also killed.

One of the elderly women had also been shot in the head, seemingly “shot in her sleep”, Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux told the Los Angeles Times.

Two unidentified women survived by hiding in a trailer on the property, officials told the LA Times.

They told investigators that at least two men were spotted on surveillance cameras “sneaking onto the property … But by the time they came on, it was too late to do anything”, Boudreaux said.

The “manner and swiftness” of the attacks suggested experienced killers, the sheriff said.

“I can’t wrap my head around what kind of monster would do this,” the baby’s great-grandfather said. Picture: Facebook / Shyla Pina

“If [they] are specifically shooting everyone in the head, they know what they are doing … [and] they are comfortable with what they are doing,” he told the LA paper.

“I think it’s specifically connected to the cartel,” he said, without specifying a particular organisation.

“The level of violence … this was not your run-of-the-mill, low-end gang member.”

“We believe this is very targeted. This is very personal and we also believe this is a message being sent,” the sheriff told KFSN.

Officers initially assumed they were dealing with an active shooter because so many shots were fired. At least one of the six killed was alive when they arrived, succumbing to his injuries later.

Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux said at the scene that it appeared to be a “targeted” attack at the house that was raided a week earlier. Picture: KMPH

One neighbour told the LA Times that he heard “on and off shots” and the sound of a car speeding away — which he believes was the killers “chasing people”. “Basically hunting,” he said.

Goshen is a semirural community of about 3000 residents 50km southeast of Fresno. Tulare County Supervisor Eddie Valero called the carnage “everyone’s worst nightmare”.

“These senseless acts of violence, especially with infants, children and young adults, have no place in our communities,” Valero said in a statement.

Friends mourned the “beautiful angels” who were “taken far too soon”.

“My heart aches this morning as the world lost these beautiful souls,” one friend wrote of the “so stunning and beautiful” young mum and her “sweetest boy”.

“You both deserved the world. You had the purest souls anyone has seen. This world is cruel and you will get justice,” wrote the friend, saying that “it will never be the same with you both gone”.

This article was originally published by the New York Post and reproduced with permission