A pregnant woman in Louisville, Kentucky, was found fatally shot in front of her husband and 13-month-old child on Sunday. The Louisville Courier-Journal reports Nyota Bawili and her husband had just moved to the area from Florida after they fled the Democratic Republic of The Congo to escape threats of violence and war.

A bullet was shot through her home early on Sunday morning while she was watching TV with her husband and toddler. Four of their children were also in the home at the time of the shooting. The 39-year-old mother of seven was also pregnant with the couple's eighth child at the time. WDRB reports Bawili was pronounced dead on the scene when first responders arrived. 

“To see my wife dead in front of me and in front of our 13-month-old child — that is the most devastating thing I’ve experienced in life,” her husband Patrick Pili Pili said through their family friend Rolend Butsitsi, who interpreted the conversation, according to the Courier-Journal.

His interpreter expressed that the father was going through a great amount of grief over the sudden loss of his wife, saying that "she was not only his wife. She was his best friend," WDRB reports.

"Whoever did this, wherever they are, it really left me with a big scar and a big task. He or she took my best friend away and as a widow of seven kids, with the last being a 13-month-old, I don't know where to start or to finish," Bawili's husband said. "Why did you do this?" 

The family never expected for this kind of violence to follow them to the U.S.

Butsitsi said due to the family's history and their reason for leaving their home country, nobody would've expected a fate so tragic to fall upon the wife and mother. 

"Knowing they moved from a country of war to one of the best countries in the world, we never thought this would happen," he said, according to the Courier-Journal. 

"We came from a country where there are guns and violence, like war. And for some reason, we thought that the grass was greener on the other side. And for some reason, we've come and we succumb to the same thing that we as a community, as a people, endured in the Congo," Pili Pili said, according to WDRB. 

The killing comes as violent crimes rise in Louisville

Bawili's death marks the third killing of a pregnant woman in the city in the last month. According to the Courier-Journal, Jakia Holt, another pregnant woman, was killed one day earlier after receiving multiple gunshot wounds. Holt died on Jan. 8 at the University of Louisville Hospital. She was five months pregnant when she was shot on Jan. 3 inside of her vehicle. 

Another recent case involves 20-year-old Shania Lee Summers. Summers was about four months pregnant when a car driving next to hers on Interstate 264 fired shots. She was in critical condition when she arrived at the University of Louisville Hospital but died on Dec. 3. 

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