KC triple killing’s tragic toll: 3 children lose both their parents; 1 is motherless

The triple killing inside a Kansas City home last week left three young children without both of their parents and another child motherless one day before her seventh birthday.

Grieving family for Jennifer Portillo and her husband and for Yessenia “Yoshi” Ahumada anguished over the children while waiting what comes of an ongoing police investigation.

“We haven’t heard anything,” said Edward Millbrook, who was Ahumada’s fiance and partner for 10 years.

Police rushed to the house at the corner of 17th Street and Chelsea Avenue shortly before 10 a.m. Nov. 10 when one a woman called to say there had been a shooting. The other two victims would be pronounced dead at the scene and the caller died at a hospital.

Police have provided little more information on the killings, which they are investigating as a triple homicide.

Millbrook can imagine only that his fiance “was at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Ahumada and Portillo and her husband had been friends for several years, Millbrook said. Millbrook’s and Ahumada’s daughter played with their children many times.

Police have not yet released the name of Portillo’s husband because they have been attempting to contact relatives outside the U.S.

Friends of Portillo’s family — who asked to remain private — lamented on a GoFundMe.com fundraising page that “these three beautiful babies lost their mother and father to a horrible act.” A picture shows their two boys wrapped around their little sister under the heading: “For the kids.”

“We are trying raise money to get things for them that are needed to help them,” it reads. “Anything will help.”

Ahumada’s family gathered the day after she died for her daughter’s birthday, Millbrook said.

His daughter has lost her mother, he said, and those who knew Ahumada are grieving the loss of “a humble person, a great friend, a great sister.”

Ahumada was studying to be a dental hygienist, he said. “She was doing good.”

Her family, on the Yessenia Ahumada Memorial Fund at GoFundMe.com, remembered “Yoshi” as “a beautiful, kind-hearted, loving young lady, who loved laughter, (who) could light up the room anywhere she went.”

Family of Portillo’s husband are also seeking help through GoFundMe.com, on a page in Spanish titled, “Repatriación de cadaver” to help with burial costs.

Police said the investigation is ongoing and anyone with information asked to call the TIPS Hotline at 816-474-TIPS (8477).

This story was originally published November 14, 2017 at 1:42 PM with the headline "KC triple killing’s tragic toll: 3 children lose both their parents; 1 is motherless."