Grandmother Ann Hernandez held a white candle dotted with rainbow butterflies — her granddaughter’s favorite.

Hernandez, whose teenage son was fatally gunned down 20 years ago, opened her home in North Long Beach for a vigil Monday evening, Dec. 3, to mourn her 24-year-old granddaughter.

The young woman was fatally shot over the weekend.

Some 100 family and friends at the vigil remembered Anna Perez, who was shot and killed in Downtown Long Beach early Saturday. The vigil also called for justice to find the killer, as Long Beach police still search for a suspect.

Family member Viviana Medina holds a candle during a candlelight vigil for Anna Perez, 24, in Long Beach on Monday, December 3, 2018. Perez died after she was caught in a crossfire of a dispute in a Long Beach parking lot early Saturday morning. (Photo by Ana P. Garcia, Contributing Photographer)

Brenda Colon is embraced as people gather at a candlelight vigil for her daughter, Anna Perez, in Long Beach on Monday, December 3, 2018. Perez died after she was caught in the crossfire of a dispute in a Long Beach parking lot early Saturday morning. (Photo by Ana P. Garcia, Contributing Photographer)

Family and friends gather for a candlelight vigil for 24-year-old Anna Perez in Long Beach on Monday, December 3, 2018. Perez died after she was caught in the crossfire of a dispute in a Long Beach parking lot early Saturday morning. (Photo by Ana P. Garcia, Contributing Photographer)

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Family and friends gather for a candlelight vigil for 24-year-old Anna Perez in Long Beach on Monday, December 3, 2018. Perez died after she was caught in the crossfire of a dispute in a Long Beach parking lot early Saturday morning. (Photo by Ana P. Garcia, Contributing Photographer)

Family and friends write messages on a collage of photos of Anna Perez during a candlelight vigil in Long Beach on Monday, December 3, 2018. Perez died after she was caught in the crossfire of a dispute in a Long Beach parking lot early Saturday morning. (Photo by Ana P. Garcia, Contributing Photographer)



Family and friends gather for a candlelight vigil for 24-year-old Anna Perez in Long Beach on Monday, December 3, 2018. Perez died after she was caught in the crossfire of a dispute in a Long Beach parking lot early Saturday morning. (Photo by Ana P. Garcia, Contributing Photographer)

Brenda Colon is embraced as people gather at a candlelight vigil for her daughter, Anna Perez, in Long Beach on Monday, December 3, 2018. Perez died after she was caught in a crossfire of a dispute in a Long Beach parking lot early Saturday morning. (Photo by Ana P. Garcia, Contributing Photographer)

“She was a beautiful person, this shouldn’t have happened,” Hernandez, 62, said.

The Long Beach Police Department said Perez was shot during an altercation between two groups of people — that she was unaffiliated with — in a parking lot in the area of Pacific Avenue and Fourth Street, at around 2 a.m. on Saturday, spokeswoman Arantxa Chavarria said. Officers found Perez with a gunshot wound to the upper torso and Long Beach paramedics pronounced her dead at the scene.

A bundle of pink and white star balloons flew into the sky at the vigil, after being released in honor of Perez. Brenda Colon, her mother, let out a sob after releasing the balloons.

“My daughter was my better half, we did everything together,” Colon, 44, said.

The two loved to dance, to any music, ranging from country to hip-hop. Her daughter was her best friend, Colon said.

Perez grew up in Long Beach, but went to Buena Park High School when her mother moved the family there for a few years.

Perez returned to Long Beach and worked in assisted living, helping the elderly. She planned to go to Cypress college to become a registered nurse, Colon said.

She wasn’t married and didn’t have any kids.

“She was a beautiful girl, all she did was work,” Hernandez said. “She loved her sisters, she loved her nephews. She loved her grandpa, he was the number one person in her life.”

Sabrina Maiava, 18, said her eldest sister had more life in her than anyone else she knows. Every day with Perez brought laughter.

“She was always in her own little world,” Maiava said. “Always happy, always smiling.”

Perez loved spending time with family. They would play board games and have makeovers, she said.

“She was just the best older sister,” Maiava said.

Hernandez remembers all too well the feelings of despair – and anger — of losing her 17-year-old son, Roger Hernandez Jr., who was shot and killed on Long Beach streets 1998. The case remains unsolved.

In November of that year, the teenager and his 15-year-old girlfriend, Jessica Cotta, were gunned down on Cotta’s front porch in North Long Beach.

In the early evening, their killer fired one bullet into Roger’s back. It tore through him, then into Cotta’s chest.

She died at the scene, he died on the way to the hospital.

The killings tore up the Hernandez family. They questioned — with no witnesses or motives — why this happened to the teenager.

And once again, as it appears someone opened fire near Perez and she happened to be in the crossfire, the family asks the same question.

“It’s like having the wind knocked out of you,” said Pete Hernandez, Perez’s great uncle. “But twice.”

Colon asked that her daughter’s killer come forward, so she can have closure and peace.

“I’m a very forgiving person,” she said. “She was at the wrong place at the wrong time, so the person that did it — I would love for them to come to me. I truly would.”

Colon still grieves for her brother, and now, her daughter.

She fears for her five other children.

“We need to get out of this city,” she said. “Let’s just move, it’s repeating itself. I don’t want it to repeat 20 years later. I can never get over this.”

And as Hernandez processes that another young life in her family is lost, she also thinks about her daughter.

“Our goal is just to be strong for her and help her through it,” Hernandez said of Colon, who recently had open heart surgery. “I’ve been through it, and now my daughter has to go through it.”

Perez’s family has created a GoFundMe page for donations to help with funeral expenses.

Police ask anyone with information on the case to call homicide detectives at 562-570-7244. Anonymous tips can be submitted by calling LA Crime Stoppers at 800-222-8477.