Maria Hicks, 57 [Updated]

Aug. 13, 2007, 10:44 a.m.

Maria Hicks, 58, a Latina woman, was shot near the intersection of Woodford Street and San Gabriel River Parkway about 9:55 p.m. Friday, Aug. 10, and died of her injuries at a hospital three days later, Monday, Aug. 13.

Hicks was driving home and saw a Latino man or youth spray-painting graffiti, said Lt. Larry Lincoln of the Sheriff's Department homicide bureau. She honked her horn and flashed her lights and began to follow the fleeing tagger.

Two Latino men or youths in a silver compact car pulled up and shot at her. She was struck in the upper torso. Three people were later arrested.

[Update Feb. 8, 2012: Gang member convicted of killing a grandmother trying to stop tagging]

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Five reader comments

I came across this article today after several years have passed since Maria was killed. I felt the need to tell you a story about Maria because she's responsible for me meeting my wife of now 13 years and we've since had two beautiful daughters. After 10 years have past since her death, I wanted to somehow have you get in touch with her family so I can tell them how my life was forever changed by her match making. Maria Hicks was a warm, and loving person. I'm a physician at Montery Park Hospital and back in 2003 while she worked in the East wing as the unit secretary, she always made me laugh and made made me forget about stresses at work. On Aug 13 (erie because it was the date of her being shot 4 years later) she played match maker between me and now wife of 13 years. She noticed I was briefly talking to her and caught me catching a look at her as she went to a patient's room. I went to another station and all of a sudden I hear my name paged by her over the hospital speaker system. I go back over to the station and she hands me my wife's business card from the hospice company she worked for as a nurse and she wrote her home number down on it. I'm like, "You got her number?!?! " she says, "I saw you look at her as she got up!!" I couldn't believe she went out of her way to do that. Well as the story goes, we have been married for 13 years and have two beautiful daughters as well.

Whenever I go to that nurses station, I still get choked up about what happened to her and what she has done for me with a simple kind action. I miss your laugh and I am forever grateful.

— McCarron William April 30, 2017 at 12:38 a.m.