A Texas woman has been arrested and charged with murder in connection to the fatal shooting of a homeless woman outside of a grocery store late last week.
Harris Country Sheriff Ed Gonzalez shared a post to Twitter on Monday, July 26, revealing that 34-year-old Christine Fesus was in custody after admitting to shooting a 36-year-old Black homeless woman Deandrea Citizen on Sunday, July 25, in the parking lot of a Food Town grocery store.
Initially, Fesus told authorities that she was walking her dog when she was “attacked or aggressively approached” by Citizen. The woman, who is white, said that’s when she opened fire, shooting the victim at least once.
According to court documents obtained by the Houston Chronicle, following the slaying, Fesus went home to her apartment located behind the business. After stashing away her firearm and changing her clothes, she phoned authorities to notify them of her involvement.
However, investigators say that according to a nearby surveillance video and multiple witnesses who identified Fesus as the shooter, the woman was actually walking her dog when she spotted Citizen sitting on a curb talking to herself and then shot her. One man who claimed to witness the incident, said he tried to perform CPR on the victim, but emergency medical services pronounced her dead at the scene.
Elsewhere, another man claiming to be the boyfriend of the deceased told authorities that he was lying down while Citizen was talking to herself, something he said she routinely did during her mental health crisis.
He told cops that’s when Fesus walked up to them. The unidentified man said, “words were exchanged,” and then Fesus fired her handgun. He says when he asked Citizen if she was hit she confirmed before falling to the ground.
There were some discrepancies in Fesus’ story, who later told cops that Citizen “came at me.” She also told authorities that the displaced woman said to her, “There is one of those diseased white people.”
Fesus was released on a $75,000 bond on Tuesday. She made a court appearance Wednesday, when her public defender successfully opposed prosecutors’ request to have the judge impose a curfew and house arrest on Fesus as conditions of her bond.
