Wife of deadly shooting victim speaks out

NOW: Wife of deadly shooting victim speaks out
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SOUTH BEND, Ind. - The life of a soon-to-be father of four was gone in an instant Wednesday in South Bend’s deadly shooting. Two days later, his wife is speaking out.

There now sits a bed he’ll never again sleep in, a van he’ll never drive, and the love of his life to whom he’ll never come home.

“I can’t even be in my own house, in my own room, just knowing this is the last place I seen him,” said Kylie Sanchez, the wife of one of the shooting victims, Anton James Jr.

The room in which she’s sitting was the last place 21-year-old Kylie Sanchez saw her husband, her best friend of eight years, 25-year-old Anton James, Jr.

He was one of two men killed in a deadly shooting in South Bend late Wednesday night.

“I just woke up to a picture of my car and seeing his body,” said Sanchez.

She says the car that crashed into a house on Johnson Street was theirs.

“He was the one driving. He lost control,” she said.

Minutes before…

“He just told me he would be back. He had to make a run, and I kept texting him, and I never got a response until 11:18, three minutes before they say everything happened. He was telling me he would be home soon,” said Kylie.

Unfortunately, that didn’t happen.

“This wasn’t meant for him…He’s not that type of person. He’s not a gang-banger, none of that. He’s all about his family and his kids,” she said.

Come December, Kylie will have four kids without a father—an 11-month-old, a two-year-old, and a six-year-old who still has no idea his daddy’s gone.

“I just want to cry. He is his daddy’s best friend,” she said. “Now my kids have to live without a father for the rest of their life because of someone else’s actions.”

As Kylie grieves, she’s trying to hold on to the happy memories.

“A loving man. He has a big heart. He’d do anything for anybody…He made me the person I am. He got me on my feet, made me a better mom,” she said.

She says right now, she’s not trying to move on, because she’ll never love like this again.

“It’s different, because this is the only person I will ever spend my life with, and I can’t physically have him here,” said Kylie.

Kylie pleads with everyone to stop the violence so that no one else has to go through what she’s experiencing.

If you have any information, please contact Metro Homicide at 574-235-5009 or Crime Stoppers at 574-288-STOP.

Charges have now been filed in this case

40-year-old Ronald Snyder is being charged with the murder of both Anton James, Jr. and Da'Mon Bethel.

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