Washington [US], September 10: Ivanna Ortiz loved taking her daughter to the movies. She was religious, preferring Christian musicians to secular ones, and she sang in the church choir. She worked as a speech pathologist and ran her own clinic.
"Everywhere she went, she always put a smile on your face," said Jennifer Oxendine, who was friends with Ortiz in the late 2000s when they attended the same church. "She always just made you feel like a sense that everything's going to be okay."
Now, Ortiz, 36, stands accused of attempting the unthinkable.
In March, police say, Ortiz drove to the Los Angeles home of Rihanna, while the star and her partner, rapper A$AP Rocky, were in an Airstream trailer parked in the driveway. She grabbed a loaded AR-15 rifle and fired at least ten shots at the front gate, according to the police report obtained before it was sealed to the public. When the noise of gunshots stopped, Rihanna told investigators, she opened a curtain to peek outside and saw two bullet holes in the glass, realizing she had been standing in the line of fire and had only been saved by the double-paned windshield. Nobody was injured.
In the six months since her arrest, Ortiz has been in custody in Los Angeles undergoing mental health evaluations to determine if she's competent to stand trial on charges of attempted murder, assault with a semiautomatic weapon and shooting at an inhabited dwelling or camper. The process has been delayed several times. Ortiz has pleaded not guilty and her lawyer, appointed by the Los Angeles County Public Defender's Office, did not respond to requests for comment.
In interviews, former friends and relatives painted a picture of a woman whose mental health changed in recent years, after a bad car accident and as she grappled with losing custody of her daughter. Their characterizations of Ortiz are supported by correspondence and legal filings within hundreds of pages of unearthed court documents and police records.
What is certain is that, in the months before the attack, Ortiz appeared to show a growing obsession with Rihanna. A YouTube account appearing to belong to her posted over a hundred videos in which she read from a prayer journal and, in at least three videos, went on tangents about Rihanna, saying in one that she believed the singer wanted to "kill" her. The pop star's "intrusive" spirit, she said in another video, was obsessed with her and had been stalking her.
In January, Ortiz sent an email to her ex-husband demanding he "renounce" the singer and "confess that I'm better than her," court records show. "You gotta let me know so that door can be closed," Ortiz wrote, according to a copy of the email.
The attack unfolded two months later.
When questioned at the police station, Ortiz only offered one fragment of insight, according to the police report: "I would like to say that I wasn't attempting murder."
Source: Fijian Broadcasting Cooperation
