Mother grieves loss of preborn son as two men are charged with his murder

A woman who was eight months pregnant was expecting a normal bus ride on October 4, but it turned into a nightmare after she was shot. Though she survived, her baby did not — and the men responsible are now facing murder charges.

Selena Santana, 29, was pregnant with her third child when a shooting broke out. “We weren’t ready for this, we weren’t expecting this,” she told NBC10 Boston. “We wanted our baby, and now, you know, I haven’t even gotten to see Ezekiel, which is my son’s name.”

Two men, 30-year-old Johnluis Sanchez and 22-year-old Alejandro Ramos, have been arrested and charged with murder, but police believe a third suspect may still be at large. Surveillance footage showed three men get into an altercation, which eventually led to gunfire, just as a city bus happened to drive by.

“The light had turned green and the bus started turning,” Santana said in a phone interview with MassLive, adding, “All of a sudden, I heard a big boom on the bus. I looked to my right and saw a piece of metal under the window had been shot off. I looked down when I heard the second shot go off and I realized I was hit.”

Santana’s fiancé, Ramón García, was with her, and they called for the bus driver to pull over. Santana was taken to the hospital and her baby was delivered; he had been shot in the chest. Doctors worked frantically to save him, but were unable to.

“They have a bell that rings when a baby is born, and I just wish it would have been me and my son,” Santana said. The family has since launched a GoFundMe page to help with burial costs. “I just want to send him off in a nice way he deserves. We can give him a proper burial.”

Though Santana survived, she is still facing complications, including abdominal injuries, bleeding, and a severed artery in her leg. “It has been a process getting all that healed,” she said. “Mentally it has been really hard. I can’t even talk about it without crying.”