A woman died shielding her baby as a gunman went on a rampage killing 20 people in a Texas shopping mall, her sister said.
Leta Jamrowski, 19, has also made a heartbreaking appeal for information about her missing brother-in-law after the mass shooting in El Paso on Saturday.
Ms Jamrowski said her sister Jordan Anchondo, a 25-year-old mum of three, was shot dead while shielding her two-month-old son as the shooter opened fire in a Walmart store near Cielo Vista Mall.
She had been shopping for back-to-school supplies. Her baby suffered broken bones caused by his mother’s fall.
Ms Jamrowski told The Associated Press: "From the baby's injuries, they said that more than likely my sister was trying to shield him.
"So when she got shot she was holding him and she fell on him, so that's why he broke some of his bones. So he pretty much lived because she gave her life."
Ms Jamrowski spent the night desperately awaiting word of whether her brother-in-law, Andre Anchondo, had survived the attack that also wounded more than two dozen.
Unable to hold back her tears, she said in a devastating appeal: “If anyone hears, just give us a call. We’re worried, we want to make sure he’s ok.”
A 21-year-old man, named by US media as Patrick Crusius, is in police custody over the shooting, which also left 26 injured. It is understood to be the eighth deadliest mass shooting in modern US history.
