A Florida hospital director and her 4-year-old son were fatally shot at a Chase Bank drive-thru on Friday by a man Miami-Dade police identified as her ex-boyfriend.
Odalys Maria Bancroft, 43, was with her son Theodore Couto, 4, when Michael Andres Pineda Lozano, 41, pulled up next to their minivan and opened fire, according to a police press release shared with HuffPost. Pineda Lozano then shot and killed himself, the release says.
A sergeant who was already in the area responded to the scene immediately after hearing gunshots, and found Bancroft and her son dead inside the minivan, according to the release. Pineda Lozano was reportedly lying on the ground on the passenger side.
Odalys Bancroft and her 4-year-old son, Theodore, were killed Friday by a man police say was Bancroft's ex.
In an internal memo shared with HuffPost, Jackson Health CEO Carlos Migoya said Bancroft was the health network’s director of regulatory affairs.
Migoya described Bancroft as a valued staff member “known for her unwavering dedication, kindness, and exceptional talent.” Bancroft was hired in 2015 as a clinical staff nurse in the operating room at Holtz Children’s Hospital in Miami, according to the memo.
“Odalys believed deeply in the work we do, and never shied away from showing off her Jackson pride,” Migoya said. “Jackson is better because of Odalys and the indelible mark she made on our organization.”
Bancroft’s brother Michael Trujillo told WTVJ that the way his sister and nephew had died was unimaginable.
“I just can’t imagine any situation that would bring a normal person to do this sort of thing to a woman and her child,” Trujillo said.
Bancroft’s sister described her nephew as “the best kid in the world” in an interview with local news station WSVN. She said Bancroft was an incredible mother.
“She was a great mom, she was a great nurse, she was a great sister, she was amazing,” she told the outlet. “They didn’t deserve to die like this.”
According to law enforcement data from 2021 , 76% of female murder victims are killed by someone they know and more than one-third are killed by an intimate partner.
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