There are things kids hear inside their house.
Mom or dad yelling that dinner is ready.
The TV playing too loud.
Their siblings fighting over something ridiculous.
Mom telling everybody for the fifth time to get ready for bed.
Four children in Tooele, Utah, heard something late Monday night that no child should ever have to hear.
Their 37 year old mother, Silvia Bahena-Mota, being killed.
Their Mom Was Sitting in Her Car
Just before midnight on August 31, police in Tooele, Utah, started getting calls about gunshots near Kings Landing Road and Emma Lane.
When officers arrived at Silvia’s home, they found two vehicles inside the garage.
One was Silvia’s white Tesla.
The other was a white Toyota Tundra pickup truck that had crashed into the back of it.
Silvia was still sitting in the driver’s seat.
She was dead.
Police found bullet casings outside the driver’s-side door.
SOURCE: KSL / Tooele Police probable-cause affidavit
The pickup belonged to 37-year-old Daniel Castro Ruesga, described in court documents as Silvia’s boyfriend or former domestic partner.
And according to police, what happened wasn’t an accident.
Investigators say that after Ruesga was read his Miranda rights, he told them he had intentionally driven his truck into Silvia’s Tesla after they had an argument.
Then, according to the probable-cause affidavit, he allegedly got out and shot Silvia multiple times with a handgun while she was sitting in the car.
Police say he also told officers where the firearm had been left.
Ruesga has since been charged with murder and multiple domestic-violence-related offenses.
SOURCE: KSL / Tooele Police probable-cause affidavit
But Silvia wasn’t alone at that house. Her four children were inside.
They Heard It
According to the arrest document, all four children were inside the house while this was happening.
Police say they heard the entire incident.
They heard the crash when a pickup truck allegedly slammed into the back of their mother’s car inside their garage.
They heard the argument.
And then they heard the gunshots.
But, even that isn’t the worst detail in the police report.
The kids later went out there.
And they found their mom still sitting in the driver’s seat of her Tesla, dead.
SOURCE: Tooele Police arrest document / Gephardt Daily / KSL
I don’t know which child went out there first.
I don’t know whether all four of them saw her.
The youngest of those children is four years old.
Silvia Was Their Mom
She was a nail artist and had started to build a new career as a mortgage loan officer.
Her friend and coworker Debbie Castagno described Silvia as an incredibly hard worker.
Another friend, Ginger Mix, originally met Silvia because Silvia did her nails. Eventually, they became friends.
Silvia later did Ginger’s makeup for her wedding.
And just days before Silvia died, she did Ginger’s nails before Ginger attended her father’s funeral.
SOURCE: KSL — friends remember Silvia
Her friends describe a woman who was soft, kind and talented.
The kind of person who smiled at you and immediately made you feel comfortable around her. And an amazing mom whose four kids were her entire life.
Now they’re 4, 9, 10 and 14 years old and have to figure out what life looks like without her.
Four Years Old
At four years old, your mom is basically your entire infrastructure.
She knows what you eat, your favorite color, your sleep patterns, what books you like, what songs you like. What makes you feel better when everything goes wrong.
She knows the little things about you that nobody thinks to write down because nobody expects someone else will suddenly need to know them.
And then one night she’s just...not there anymore.
The older kids are dealing with something just as awful. Old enough to understand that their mom isn’t coming back. And according to police, old enough to remember what happened that night.
There Had Been Trouble Before
Friends told KSL that Silvia and Ruesga had an on-again, off-again relationship.
One of Silvia’s friends said there had been problems before and that Silvia had repeatedly been told he had changed.
SOURCE: KSL — interviews with Silvia’s friends
There is also a documented previous domestic-violence-related case involving Ruesga.
Court records show that following an incident in June 2025, Ruesga pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor property-damage charge marked as domestic-violence related.
He was given probation and ordered to undergo an anger-management evaluation or screening and complete recommended treatment or counseling.
That case was closed in March 2026.
There is an important distinction here:
Publicly available court records do not establish that Silvia was the victim in that earlier case.
All we do know is that Ruesga had a prior domestic-violence-related property-damage case. And six months after that case closed, police say Silvia was sitting in her Tesla when he intentionally rammed it with his truck and shot her multiple times.
While her four children were inside.
And There Are Four Charges Because There Were Four Kids
Ruesga isn’t only facing a murder charge. The case includes domestic-violence-in-the-presence-of-a-child charges tied to what happened that night. Because there wasn’t just one victim inside that home.
There were four children listening. Their mother was the person who died. But what happened in that garage didn’t happen only to Silvia.
Those children have to carry it too.
So, How Can You Help?
Silvia’s friend and coworker Debbie Castagno established a GoFundMe called Support for Silvia’s Four Children.
Local news organizations have independently identified the campaign and Debbie’s relationship to Silvia.
The fundraiser says Silvia was a devoted single mom who worked every day to provide for those kids.
Now the person doing all of that is gone.
GOFUNDME: Support for Silvia’s Four Children
And the people who knew Silvia aren’t just asking strangers on the internet for help.
Her friends and neighbors have rallied around the kids.
A vigil was organized in Silvia’s memory.
Neighbors also organized a yard sale with the proceeds going to her children.
They’re doing whatever people can do when something completely unfixable happens.
They’re trying to take care of the very few things they can fix.
Money. Food. Bills. Clothes.
Whatever those kids need while the adults around them try to build some kind of stability underneath them again.
We can help with that.