SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) - Marisol Hernandez recently gave her daughter a brand new iPhone 5S on the condition that she get good grades during her sophomore year of high school. Since Rubi Rubio had already broken two phones before, Hernandez told her daughter that if she broke this one, it would be her last.
One week after she received the gift, the 15-year-old paid for the cell phone with her life.
Rubio was walking her 7-year-old sister home from school when her phone was stolen just blocks away from their Santa Ana apartment, the police said Wednesday.
The man stopped and asked Rubio for the time and when she checked her phone to tell him, he grabbed it and jumped into a Pontiac, said Santa Ana police Cpl. Anthony Bertagna.
Rubio gave chase and jumped onto the car's trunk and clung to it as the driver swerved until she fell off, Bertagna said. She struck her head on the street and died of head trauma three days later, on Saturday, he said.
"She told her she needed to take care of this phone or she wouldn't buy her a new one," Bertagna said.
"For kids today their phone is everything to them," he said.
Rubio's mother and other relatives were grieving together at their apartment Wednesday and declined to comment to the AP.
Hernandez, 44, said at a news conference on Tuesday that her daughter seemed aware of what was going on around her at the hospital.
"She opened her eyes, looked at me for like five seconds and said, "Mom," Hernandez said through tears.
"That was the last word I heard from her," she said, according to the Orange County Register.
The suspect was last seen wearing a black baseball hat, white tank top and light-colored jeans and is described as a Latino in his later 20s or early 30s, said Bertagna. He described the vehicle as a light gray or silver Pontiac. Anyone with information was asked to call Santa Ana detectives.
Related video report:
Man sought in Santa Ana iPhone robbery that left teen girl dead