Detectives said John Mbuyi lured Raissa Thatukila and their 6-year-old daughter, Nathy Mbuyi, to a Haltom City lot under the pretense of giving them money.
HALTOM CITY, Texas — Police say a 30-year-old man lured the mother of his daughter and the 6-year-old girl to a stadium parking lot in Haltom City, then opened fire in what detectives later called a planned and targeted attack.
The killings drew wide attention in North Texas because they happened on school district property after classes had ended, took the life of a kindergartner, and quickly turned from an initial shooting call into an investigation of a suspected homicide-suicide. By Monday, detectives had publicly identified the three people involved and said the evidence pointed to advance planning, deep resentment and an ongoing custody dispute over the child.
Police were dispatched just before 4:30 p.m. Friday to the 6100 block of East Belknap, in the Birdville ISD stadium parking lot, after reports of a shooting. Officers found three people shot. Investigators said the man believed to be the shooter was outside a vehicle, while the other two victims were inside the car. One female victim was taken to a local hospital and later pronounced dead. The second female victim, a child, was pronounced dead at the scene. Medics treated the male suspect, but he was also pronounced dead a short time later. Sgt. Rick Alexander told NBC 5 that investigators believe the gunman fired into the vehicle before taking his own life. In the first hours after the shooting, police said only that the people appeared to know one another and that detectives were still verifying the exact relationships among them. The area was sealed off as officers worked the scene and contacted relatives.
By March 30, detectives said they had identified the suspected gunman as John Mbuyi, 30, and the two victims as 33-year-old Raissa Thatukila and 6-year-old Nathy Mbuyi. Police said John Mbuyi lured Thatukila and the child to the site by saying he would give them money. Once there, detectives said, he carried out an ambush he had carefully planned in advance. The department also said Mbuyi and Thatukila were in an ongoing custody dispute over Nathy and that investigators found evidence he harbored significant grievances toward Thatukila. In the same release, police said Mbuyi had been struggling after the death of his father and had expressed troubling thoughts about death. “Based on the evidence, detectives have concluded this was not a spontaneous incident but a deliberate act of violence,” the department said. That public statement shifted the case from a broad domestic dispute inquiry to a narrower account of an arranged meeting that detectives say turned deadly by design.
The location added to the shock. The shooting happened in the parking lot of Birdville Stadium, near other Birdville ISD facilities in Haltom City, and police moved quickly to stress that the violence was not tied to any district program. In its first public statement, the district said it was aware of the fatal shooting after school hours and that no activities were scheduled at the stadium or any nearby facility at the time. The district said the area was secure and that it was working closely with Haltom City police. Later reporting identified Nathy as a kindergarten student at Cheney Hills Elementary School, bringing the loss directly into a school community that had to explain the death of a very young student to classmates, teachers and families. What first looked from a distance like an incident near a school event site turned out, according to police, to be rooted in a private family conflict. That distinction mattered to families across the district as police tried to calm fears, explain the setting and make clear there was no broader threat connected to Birdville ISD operations.
Because the man police identified as the shooter also died, the case is unfolding as a homicide investigation rather than a criminal prosecution against a living defendant. Publicly, the next steps are limited compared with many high profile killing cases. Detectives gathered evidence at the lot on March 27, verified the identities and relationships of those involved, and then issued an updated release on March 30 laying out what they said the evidence showed. In that same release, the department said it would not provide additional details out of respect for the family and friends affected by the tragedy and to give them space and privacy to grieve. Police also said the shooting was an isolated incident, a key point in the first hours because the attack happened at a public site tied to a school district. No other suspect has been named, and police have not announced any pending charges against anyone else. For now, where the case stands is largely where police left it Monday: detectives say the meeting was arranged in advance, the attack was targeted, and the public record may not grow much beyond final investigative findings.
The community response has centered on grief more than public debate. FOX 4 quoted bus driver Jacque Hall, who saw the aftermath as her shift ended, saying it was “heart-wrenching” to know something like that happened at her workplace and especially painful because a child was among the dead. By Monday, local television coverage showed that a memorial marked the spot where the woman and girl were killed. Birdville ISD also turned to the language of mourning rather than procedure. Principal Cheryl Waddell of Cheney Hills Elementary said the school was devastated by the loss of one of its students and heartbroken that the tragedy happened in the community. The district said crisis counselors would be available at the school for as long as needed to support students and staff. Those details helped explain why the case resonated beyond the police summary. It was not only a fatal shooting in a parking lot. It also became a school loss, a workplace trauma for district employees and a public tragedy in a place many families know for games, pickups and ordinary school routines.
As of Tuesday, the broad outline of the case had hardened even as many private details remained unknown outside police files. Detectives say the meeting was arranged ahead of time, the killings were targeted, and the last major public update came March 30, when the department named the dead and said it would step back to give the family privacy.
Author note: Last updated April 1, 2026.