Background: Obdulia Sanchez during a court hearing (KSEE). Inset: Monica Barajas (San Joaquin County Sheriff's Office).
A California woman who became infamous for livestreaming the dead body of her teen sister after a car crash was gunned down in a drive-by shooting.
Obdulia Sanchez, 26, was still a teenager in 2017 when she went to prison for gross vehicular manslaughter, DUI, and child endangerment in connection with the death of her 14-year-old sister. The then-18-year-old was intoxicated when she crashed her car while livestreaming on Instagram and continued to record after the crash, sharing images of the younger girl's dead body. Sanchez was released from prison early and had another brush with the law in 2019.
In December 2025, she was the victim of a fatal drive-by shooting. On Friday, the San Joaquin County Sheriff's Office announced that a suspect in the shooting, Monica Barajas, was taken into custody.
According to the San Joaquin County Sheriff's Office, deputies responded to a location in Stockton, California, after receiving reports of shots fired. When they arrived, they found Sanchez and an unidentified male victim with gunshot wounds. Sanchez was taken to a hospital, where she died. The male victim survived.
Three months later, on March 12, deputies executed a search warrant at a home in Stockton, and Barajas was identified as a suspect in the fatal shooting. She was arrested on charges of murder and attempted murder and booked into the San Joaquin County Jail. Barajas was scheduled to be arraigned on Monday.
As Law&Crime previously reported, Sanchez pleaded no contest to charges in connection with the death of her younger sister. At her sentencing hearing, Sanchez read a prepared statement in which she said, "I feel like such an idiot. Why did God choose me to be the older sister? I can't even do my job right."
She further explained why she continued to livestream after crashing her car and broadcast images of her dead sister's body to thousands of people before authorities arrived. She said in a letter to local CBS affiliate KGPE, "I made that video because I knew I had more than 5,000 followers. It was the only way my sister would get a decent burial. I would never expose my sister like that. I anticipated the public donating money because my family isn't rich."
An unnamed 15-year-old girl was also in the car at the time of the crash. She was injured but survived.
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