Mom of 4 found shot to death in canal, Arizona cops say. Now, her family wants answers
_fitted.png "A family is looking for answers after a mother of four was found shot to death in an Arizona canal last week, according to media reports. (Screenshot from GoFundMe)")
A family is looking for answers after a mother of four was found shot to death in an Arizona canal last week, according to media reports.
Police found the body of Janet Begaye, 37, in a Phoenix canal “in the area of 1400 North 32nd Street” on Tuesday, July 5, according to a news release from the Arizona Police Department. The woman had been shot.
A homicide investigation is now underway, police said.
Begaye’s family says it just doesn’t add up, according to 12 News. She was a homebody and rarely left her city of Glendale.
“We don’t know anybody out there (in Phoenix), she doesn’t know anybody out there. What was she doing out there? Who was she with?” Marlene Mercado, a friend of Begaye’s, told the outlet.
Begaye’s car, a 2009 white Impala, is still missing, her family told ABC 15 News.
“Also, her personal belongings, her purse, her wallet are also missing,” Begaye’s sister, Jeannette Johnson, told the outlet.
Noreen Soto, who is also Begaye’s sister, said in a Facebook live video that she can’t understand why someone would harm her sister.
“What happened that night? Why? What did she do that was so bad that you had to pull a gun on her? Like I said, she wasn’t a bad person,” she said.
Instead, Soto remembers her sister as a caring mother.
“She was always so proud of her kids, like anytime the kids did anything, she’d call me,” Soto said.
Johnson echoed Soto’s comments about Begaye.
“She was a very good mother to her kids. She bent over backwards just to make sure…going back to work at night, so she could be home with the kids during the day,” Johnson told FOX 10 News.
As Begaye is “from the Navajo tribe in New Mexico,” she will be buried there among family, the outlet reported.
Anyone with information is asked to contact police at 602-262-6151 or Silent Witness at 480-WITNESS.
This story was originally published July 11, 2022 at 4:52 PM with the headline "Mom of 4 found shot to death in canal, Arizona cops say. Now, her family wants answers."
