A Texas teen is being hailed as a hero for getting her friends to safety before she died of a gunshot wound to the heart during a disturbing road rage incident.
Seventeen-year-old Louise Jean Wilson managed to veer off of the road to get her passengers out of harm’s way when another driver became enraged that she “unintentionally swerved” in front of them to “avoid striking a braking vehicle ahead” on December 10, the Houston Police Department reported.
Police said the unidentified driver of the “newer model, black or dark-colored, four-door sedan” then moved to the left of the victim’s vehicle, and at least one unknown suspect fired shots from the passenger side window, striking Wilson and a male back seat passenger. A second male passenger inside the vehicle was not injured.
The incident occurred at around 1:05 a.m. on South Interstate 45 in Houston, the department said.
Despite being shot in the heart, Wilson was able to “safely” guide her car off the road to “save her friends from the gunfire and prevent other drivers from crashing into her vehicle on the busy interstate,” the New York Post reported.
Wilson tragically died at the scene shortly after. The other wounded passenger was successfully treated and released from a local hospital.
“Louise’s last act was to safely pull over, most likely saving the lives of two males,” Detective Caleb Bowling said during a press conference. “It was a heroic act to get that car to the side and stop with the injuries that she sustained.”
The suspected shooter, described as a black male in his mid-20s, is still on the run.
“Our daughter was just trying to go to the beach to watch the sunrise with her boyfriend on her day off before she had to go back to work again,” the victim’s father, Daniel Wilson, said.
“She ended up dying a hero. She was shot through her heart, and she was still able to safely pull over the car and save people in her car and other people who were driving. She wanted to help people, and she helped them.”
The heartbroken father had a stern message for the suspect as police attempt to track him down.
“Just think about… what you took from this world and what she could have done,” he said. “Lay that on your conscience, whoever did this. Just know, you gave an angel, but you took our baby girl.”
Wilson graduated from high school in the spring and was only “a few classes” away from her associate’s degree, according to her obituary.
The biography states that the teen had called Whitney, Texas, “her home since 2016 and developed deep roots with family and friends in the local area.”
She spent her time volunteering at a thrift store, a senior home, a food pantry, a pet adoption center, a military veteran charity, and the pro-life organization 40 Days for Life.
Wilson was killed on her grandmother’s birthday, her father revealed at the press conference.
Her uncle, Leo Amoling, described the girl as a loving person with a “wonderful soul.”
“Louise was a great girl, a wonderful soul, a great daughter, granddaughter, and sister, and to have her life senselessly taken by a dirtbag. This should not have happened,” Amoling told KTRK Monday.
“This is not the country we fought to protect, and it breaks my heart because it’s not just happening to us. There is a real crime issue in this country. We just want justice,” the mourning uncle added.
Law enforcement officers are still investigating the incident.
“We’ve been here before, and it’s sad. We’re in a large city with some homicides, and we’ve got a lot of work to do,” Houston police Chief Troy Finner said. “Every family is important to us. Every block in this city is important to us.”
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