When TikToker Dazhane (@tacoobellaaa) was 15 years old, her neighbor murdered her mom. She was the one who found the townhouse they ended up moving into. Everything was fine when they first moved in.
She vividly remembers her mom introducing her to their new neighbors, including Laura, the one who started all the chaos. After that introduction, she told her mom that there was something about Laura she didn’t like.
Her mom brushed her feelings off because she was such a happy and free-spirited person who got along with most people.
Laura barbecued often and would offer them food. Dazhane’s mom did the same whenever she cooked. Her mom frequently hung out with Laura after work in each other’s backyards.
This went on for months without any issue. But that all changed when her mom decided to go back to school and stopped hanging out with Laura as much.
Her mom’s plan was to go back to nursing school and become an LPN so she could improve their lives and move them out of Fresno. She had to use her free time after work to focus on her classes.
“As she slowly started becoming more reserved, the neighbor started turning weird,” Dazhane said.
“It became like an obsessive weird. And I’ve spoken to people about this. My mom was so beautiful…always carried herself well and things like that, and everyone keeps saying that lady was just jealous of your mom’s spirit.”
Laura began making subtle, snarky comments here and there, but her behavior gradually worsened. She would blast music in the middle of the night when she knew everyone was asleep.
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She purposely put the speaker up against the wall to make the music even louder. As she walked up the stairs in her townhouse, she would bang on the walls to create even more noise.
Dazhane’s mom started doing the same thing back to Laura in retaliation. Laura also threw garbage and food over the fence into their yard.
That petty behavior went on for months. Laura even went to a neighbor’s house across the street from Dazhane and her family to spy on them.
Dazhane’s mom called the police many times to create a paper trail. It got really bad when Laura started pointing guns at them while yelling and screaming the whole time. Laura’s boyfriend was the one who eventually pulled the trigger.
“As crazy as it sounds, he wasn’t the aggressive one,” Dazhane recalled.
“He was actually trying to diffuse a lot of the situation. She was starting a lot of issues when he was gone because he spent all day at work, and he’ll come home late at night, and sometimes he’ll walk in, in the middle of an argument or a fight or something, and he will just grab her.”
Laura even went as far as calling up her mom’s boyfriend’s job at the time and tried to get him fired. The police claimed that they searched the neighbor’s house, but they never found anything. On the day Dazhane’s mom was murdered, they found several guns in the house.
New apartments were being built on the other side of town, so Dazhane’s mom decided they would just move. They were so close to leaving, with only six days to go until their moving date.
Their place was all packed up, and Laura had gotten served with an eviction notice, so everyone was on their way out. Sadly, Dazhane’s mom wouldn’t live to see the next chapter of their lives.
By Emily Chan
Emily Chan is a writer who covers lifestyle and news content. She graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in... More about Emily Chan
