FAIRFIELD, Calif. — A father was shot and killed during an early morning fight last month, protecting his son from attackers, his wife said Monday.
"He always said that if anybody tries to do anything to my kids, 'I'm gonna take a bullet for them if I have to,'" said Adelita Pacheco.
Pacheco said the victim was her husband, Reynaldo Pacheco. The couple had been married for the past 20 years, first getting together at 19 years old.
With her husband's death, she's been left to raise her family alone.
"I lost a partner and my kids lost a father, so it just hurts to get used to being alone by myself, trying to raise four boys," she said.
The shooting happened in the early morning hours of Sept. 25. The Fairfield Police Department said they responded to a fight along the 1000 block of Eisenhower Street before being told that shots had been fired outside a house. When police arrived, they found Reynaldo Pacheco shot. He ultimately died at the hospital.
Adelita Pacheco said her 20-year-old son had stayed out late at party that night and was attacked in what she said was a case of mistaken identity. When she, her husband and her two kids arrived at the party, they went looking for her son.
"My son came out, and he had two black eyes, bleeding from his nose, and there was just blood all over his shirt and everything," Pacheco said, adding that she grabbed her son and rushed him to a hospital.
Afterward, she said a fight broke out between her husband, another son and around six other people. She said someone eventually pulled out a gun and shot her husband.
From the moment she arrived to the moment her husband of 20 years was shot took only two to three minutes, she said.
"He just felt he had to do what a father does to protect and to show people that you just can't step on other people's toes and get away with it," Pacheco said.
Pacheco said her husband was a hard worker, who spent the weekends watching sports and spending time with his kids by taking them on road trips or to San Francisco Giants games.
"He was fun loving, and he just liked to have a good time with everybody," Pacheco said.
She's been telling her son that he's not responsible for the shooting that took his father's life.
"He feels it's his fault because he went to this party... you couldn't know that though. You didn't know it was going to happen," Pacheco said.
Nearly a month into the investigation, few details on the investigation have been revealed. A spokesperson for the Fairfield Police Department said there are no updates in the case and that it remains under investigation.
Pacheco is hoping somebody from that party does the right thing and speaks out.
"Somebody just needs to come forward and do the right thing, so that way we can all live in peace because they're not living in peace either and me and my family don't have peace," she said.
Pacheco started a GoFundMe page to support her family during this time.
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