Surveillance videos show final moments of killed massage shop employee
"Everything was very sad to see. I replayed it a lot in my head for a while," Jody Muñiz Johnson, a nearby business owner, said.
"Everything was very sad to see. I replayed it a lot in my head for a while," Jody Muñiz Johnson, a nearby business owner, said.
"Everything was very sad to see. I replayed it a lot in my head for a while," Jody Muñiz Johnson, a nearby business owner, said.
Last Friday marked five months since the deadly shooting at a massage shop in northeast Albuquerque.
Yet, despite the time passed, a nearby business owner said she's still traumatized.
"It was just a gross feeling, to go and be happy and jolly with people [and] customers, knowing that somebody was murdered," Jody Muñiz Johnson, owner of '89 Hair Design, said.
Johnson currently works next to Wonderful Massage, located on Menaul.
The shop was where Sihui Fang, a 45-year-old employee, was killed during a shootout the night of January 24.
"She was a beautiful woman, a good woman," Johnson said. "I'd done her hair several times, so we had a connection. She was a good person, a great massage therapist."
The business owner drove to work the following morning, expecting a normal day.
However, when she arrived to her hair salon, it was anything but.
"We all got together, the barber and cellphone guy next door, and we just were in shock. We tried to put the pieces together, but we didn't know much," Johnson said.
KOAT exclusively obtained surveillance video inside the massage shop, showing Fang's last moments.
In the video, Fang appears to let 19-year-old Juan Carlos Hernandez and 18-year-old Jorge Rivera-Ramirez inside the business around 8:15 p.m. The situation then escalated, after one of the suspects threatened her with a gun.
The video then shows Fang being dragged to the back of the shop by her hair.
She eventually died after a shoot-out with Rivera-Ramirez. He was later taken to the hospital in critical condition.
"I actually went in the next day with her partner, and he wanted to gather some stuff," she said. "To see him cry, and to find her mask full of blood, and the bullet holes. Everything was very sad to see. I replayed it a lot in my head for a while."
Rod Honstein was Fang's partner for four years.
He said he's still struggling with the major loss.
"I read a phrase one time that sort of resonates with me. 'Time passes, but the pain remains.' And that's kind of the situation," Honstein said.
He's now turning his attention to a new documentary, highlighting the issue of Asian hate crimes.
Honstein hopes his pain, won't be experienced by anyone else.
"I think if this documentary brings awareness to the issue that Asian people in the United States face, then it somehow can make a difference in bringing people together," he said. We can figure out how we can deal with these kinds of problems."
The "I Hate Asians" documentary is expected to be released in February 2023. It's being directed by Charlie Minn.