Paola Nunez Linares and Zane Jones (KDFW screenshots)
A 37-year-old woman in Texas was killed in an apparent road rage incident after her husband — who was behind the wheel of their minivan — said he “flipped off” another driver who responded by firing several shots at their vehicle. The victim, identified as Paola Nunez Linares, was pronounced dead at a local hospital shortly after the incident, authorities said.
According to a press release from the Hurst Police Department, HPD officers and Hurst Fire Department units at about 9:15 p.m. on Monday, July 10 responded to a 911 call regarding an adult female who had been shot at in the 1400 block of West Hurst Boulevard. Upon arriving at the scene, first responders found the victim — later identified as Linares — suffering from a gunshot wound to the head.
Hurst Fire Department medics immediately transported Linares to John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth, Texas, where doctors pronounced her dead at approximately 2 a.m. on July 11.
Police said the victim’s husband — later identified as Zane Jones — told investigators on the scene that he was driving their maroon 2017 KIA minivan north on East Loop 820 when they were “involved in a road rage incident” with another vehicle. Authorities provided only a vague description of the alleged shooter’s vehicle.
“An occupant of the other vehicle fired several shots at them, striking [his wife],” the release states. “The suspect vehicle was described as a small, dark-colored, older model car.”
Police asked anyone with information to contact Detective C. Jackson at 817-788-7179, Crime Stoppers at 817-469-8477, or leave an anonymous tip at 469tips.com
In a public Facebook post, Johnson pleaded for witnesses to the shooting or others who may have information about the incident to contact law enforcement, saying that his wife was “an innocent victim”
“She was an innocent victim. She was a passenger in the car when I flipped off a driver who put us in danger. She always hated when I did that, and I did it anyways. Then the driver shot into our car and struck my beautiful wife, who had nothing to do with anything,” Jones wrote. “She was the most special person I’ve ever known, and I can’t understand why it happened. She was my other half and I’ll love her until the day I die. If anyone has ANY information, I’m begging you to come forward. It’s the worst night of my life and it was the last night of hers.”
In the post, Jones said Linares “meant everything” to him and was a “wonderful” stepmom to his children. The Guatemalan native and Jones were married last year.
In an interview with Dallas Fox affiliate KDFW, Jones said he was driving to Kelly-Moore Paints, where he and his wife both worked the night shift, and was passing a vehicle when the suspect’s vehicle sped up behind him.
“I completed the pass. I got into the right lane, and he started to zoom past me. But then he leveled off when he got to me, and he like moved over, like pushing me but not touching me because I moved over too,” Jones said. “I looked over at him when I [flipped him off], and I thought he was flipping me off too. But it turns out he was holding the gun. He slowed down until we were about like that (the suspect’s vehicle next-to and slightly behind Jones’ vehicle on the driver’s side), and he shot through my back left window and hit my wife in the back of the head.”
He told Fort Worth, NBC affiliate KXAS-TV that he wants to see the shooter “rot” behind bars.
“I need him caught, I need him prosecuted, I need him in prison. I need him to know he didn’t just fire a gun into a car, ‘The end.’ He killed someone who’s not like anyone,” Jones told the station. “Someone who had nothing to do with anything. Someone who was a passenger of the person he was mad at.”
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