LAWRENCE, Mass. (MyFoxBoston.com) - A woman was fatally shot while sleeping Saturday in Lawrence, and police arrested her upstairs neighbors on unrelated drug charges while investigating the shooting.
Forty-one-year-old Mirta Rivera was shot just after 4 a.m. while sleeping in her own bed in a multi-family apartment building on Exchange Street. Police say someone shot Rivera through the floor from the apartment above hers. She was taken to the hospital with gunshot wounds to her abdomen and was later pronounced dead.
"She didn't deserve to die the way that she died," Rivera's daughter said. "She was the only one left I had as a parent."
Three people, who live in the apartment above Rivera were arrested on drug charges. Jose Lara-Mejia, Wilton Lara Calmona, and Christopher Paganmoux were arraigned in court Monday.
According to prosecutors, a hole in the ceiling led police officers to the second floor apartment, where they smelt burnt gunpowder, and found a bedroom directly over the first floor bedroom where Rivera was lying, asleep. There was a hole in the rug of the upstairs bedroom.
When police searched the apartment and the area around the building, they allegedly found $75,000 worth of drugs packed for sale and a stolen rifle from California, that they say appears to match the bullet found in Rivera's mattress.
No arrests have been made in connection with the shooting, however, and the investigation remains ongoing.