‘Pride of her family.’ Funeral expense fundraiser started for slain Hanford High grad
Jatzivy Sarabia loved her friends. She loved music. And she was senselessly murdered, says her family.
Sarabia, 18, was apparently riding in a car on Highway 397 in Benton County and Kennewick when she was shot and killed.
“Jatzivy was a beautiful person inside and out,” said her cousin, Jamie Harbert, who started a GoFundMe fundraiser to help with funeral expenses. “She was the big sister in the house. Always taking care of everyone’s needs.”
Sarabia graduated from Hanford High School in Richland in June, a goal that she had worked hard to achieve. Several photos posted by friends and relatives show her in purple graduation robes.
Her love of doing her hair and makeup led her to consider going to cosmetology school, but she changed those plans and set her sights on becoming a radiology technician.
She planned to pursue that goal at Columbia Basin College starting in January.
Harbert wrote that she was one of seven children, and also had a foster family in Spokane along with countless cousins.
She played sports as a child, including volleyball and cheer and played soccer for Hanford High.
“She was her mom’s ‘brain bank.’ She knew all the logins and passwords. She kept the family on track,” Harbert wrote. “She was the pride of her family.”
Fatal confrontation
Benton County sheriff’s detectives were continuing Monday to search for the person who fired the fatal shot in a confrontation on Highway 397.
Dispatchers initially received a 911 call about 11:40 p.m. about someone opening fire on the road near the cable bridge in east Kennewick. According to the report, one car stopped on the street and another one drove north across the bridge into Pasco.
About five minutes after gunfire was reported, a woman called 911, crying and saying that a young woman had been shot, according to the sheriff’s office and dispatch reports. It’s unclear if the caller was a witness or knew Sarabia.
The car with Sarabia inside ended up a few blocks away near 1st Avenue and Benton Street in downtown Kennewick, where paramedics then tried unsuccessfully to save her, said an initial sheriff’s office release.
The Washington State Patrol Crime Lab collected evidence at several sites on Sunday, though Erickson said information on those locations was not being released at this time.
On Monday, Erickson said investigators are combing through a large number of security videos to trace the path of the cars and figure out what happened.
They also were interviewing a witness and asking anyone else who saw something to call the sheriff’s office at 509-735-6555 or dispatchers at 509-628-0333.
An autopsy for Sarabia is scheduled for Tuesday morning at the Spokane Medical Examiner’s Office, Coroner Bill Leach said.
Hillcrest Funerals and Cremation in Pasco is handling her services. Donations to the GoFundMe can be made at bit.ly/JatzivyGoFundMe.
