Rossy Borquez came to America from Guasave, Mexico, without knowing a single word of English. She did it for her kids. She wanted her youngest, a bright-eyed 13-year-old boy named Atiel, to have opportunities she never had growing up. By all accounts, she was doing exactly that — building something real, something worth holding on to. Then, in the dark early hours of May 14, 2026, everything she had built went up in flames.
Just before 4:30 in the morning, firefighters and police rushed to the 100 block of South Fifth Street in Montebello, a city in east Los Angeles County. The house was already completely swallowed by fire when they arrived. Officers found Rossy and a man — her boyfriend of about eight months — standing outside the burning home, their bodies covered in severe burns. Inside, little Atiel was found dead. The image was too much for neighbors to bear. One witness, Alisson Gomez, couldn’t hold back the horror of what she saw. “We saw a man and a lady just burning,” she said. “Honestly, all her skin was off. Her hair burnt off completely, and she was just screaming for her son.”
Rossy and the man were rushed to the hospital in critical condition. Neither one made it. Montebello Police Chief Luis Lopez later told reporters that investigators believe the boyfriend is the suspect and that the fire started as a domestic violence incident. Arson investigators and homicide detectives are still working to piece together the hours and days leading up to that horrific morning. Lopez was direct: “We do believe this is a domestic violence incident.”
Friends who knew Rossy said the red flags had been there for a while. Her close friend, Hermalinda Anaya, said Rossy had been growing increasingly frustrated with her boyfriend in the days before the fire. The two had met on TikTok and started dating about eight months prior. But what started as a connection quickly turned controlling. The man allegedly took Rossy’s cell phone away and started calling and messaging her contacts, threatening them and demanding they stay away from her. He followed her to a party when he found out she hadn’t invited him, showing up angry and unpredictable. He accused her of seeing other men constantly, and he made chilling threats. “He tell her, ‘I’m not gonna let you, nobody else be with you because I paid for your surgery, and I’m not gonna let you be with nobody else,'” Anaya recalled, repeating what Rossy had told her.
Anaya said she last spoke to Rossy just four days before the fire, that Monday, and while she was clearly worried about her friend’s situation, she never once thought it would come to this. “We’re trying to find out what happened hours, or even days, leading up to the incident so we can identify a motive,” Chief Lopez said. Police confirmed there are no outstanding suspects — the man believed responsible also died in the blaze.
Rossy also had an older daughter, who shared a heartbreaking statement after losing both her mother and her younger brother in the same night. “She was the most hardworking person I have ever known,” the daughter wrote. “She went to another country without knowing the language just so her younger child could have better opportunities.” She didn’t stop there. “I’m devastated, angry and missing my brother and mother,” she continued. “They were victims, and now there’s no one to take accountability and direct my anger towards.” Those words hit different. There’s no trial coming. No courtroom. No sentencing. Just grief with nowhere to go.
Rossy Borquez didn’t come all the way from Mexico, learn a new language, and raise her children in a new country just to die like this. She was a mother, a hard worker, a woman with a future. And Atiel was just a kid — thirteen years old, asleep in what was supposed to be the safety of his own home. The Montebello community is mourning them both, and their story is a painful reminder of how quickly a toxic relationship can turn deadly. If there’s one thing their family wants the world to take away from this, it’s that the warning signs were there — and sometimes, by the time someone finally sees the danger, it’s already too late.
