A Rockland County mom of six — pregnant with her seventh child — died defending her kids from a driver who intentionally rammed them after her husband asked him not to smoke near the family, relatives said Thursday.
Melissa Castillo DeLoatch “took her body and threw it in front of the stroller to protect the children” from the 2013 Infiniti Jason Mendez allegedly sped toward them outside a Garnerville 7-Eleven at about 2 p.m. Wednesday, said Melissa’s aunt, Charlene Rodriguez.
After mowing down DeLoatch, husband, Sean, and their six kids — ranging in age from 11 months to 10 years — Mendez reversed and plowed into them again, killing the mom, prosecutors allege.
“She did what any parent would do,” said Rodriguez. “She’s an angel and she’s a hero.”
But even the 32-year-old mom’s heroics weren’t enough to fully protect her three youngest, who were piled into the stroller.
“They took the brunt,” said Rodriguez, explaining that DeLoatch’s 2-year-old daughter had a concussion and needed leg surgery, while her 3-year-old son suffered a lacerated liver.
They, along with their 11-month-old sibling and their father, remain hospitalized, while the three oldest children escaped serious injury.
“Her life was her children,” said Rodriguez, adding that the couple had recently learned a seventh child was on the way. “It’s been a nightmare, one the whole family wishes we could wake up from.”
Investigators believe Mendez, 35, snapped because Sean dared ask him not to blow cigarette smoke near his kids, some of whom have asthma.
The dad bared his pain Thursday on Facebook.
“Killer u killed my wife lover best friend mother of my 6 kids my world,” he wrote in a post. “I f–king hate u.”
Rodriguez asked why Mendez — charged with murder, as well as resisting arrest for pulling a razor blade on cops and forcing them to Taser him — couldn’t just walk away.
“He should have stepped a few feet away, but he chose to be evil,” she said.