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Days After New Year's Eve Proposal, Texas Man Turns Himself In For Killing Fiancée

HOUSTON (CBSDFW.COM/CNN) - A Texas mother is dead after the man who proposed to her just four days earlier shot her in the chest.

Police say Kendrick Atkins shot Dominic Jefferson, a mother of three, during an argument outside a west Houston apartment on the morning of January 4.

After the shooting Atkins allegedly ran from the scene but returned and when he found a "concerned citizen" trying to help Jefferson he fired a shot in the direction of that person. The Good Samaritan wasn't injured.

Kendrick Atkins 2
(credit: Houston Police Department)

Friends and family say the couple had been dating for about three months and that Atkins had proposed to the Jefferson, 33, on New Year's Eve.

"I thought she had found the man of her dreams," said Jefferson's mother, Tina Hunter. "It turns out it wasn't the man of her dreams, it was the nightmare of her life."

Atkins, a 39-year-old parolee, turned himself in and has been charged with murder and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. He is being held on a total $225,000 bond.

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