MIDLAND - Instead of being celebrated by her son this Mother's Day, Quastasha Barton is mourning his "senseless" death.
"Kaleb was everything to me," she sobbed. "He was my world. As a mother, I need to know why. Why did they take him from me?"
Kaleb Kane Barton, 20, died at Midland Memorial Hospital around 4:30 a..m. Saturday, following an alleged drive-by shooting outside 211 S. Lee St.
According to Midland Police, he sustained life-threatening lower torso injuries.
Quastasha told NewsWest 9 she was sitting outside the business at the corner of Lee and Indiana with Kaleb, his brother Kyree and Kyree's girlfriend, when two Hispanic men they didn't recognize drove up. Their vehicle is described in police reports as a light blue or silver sedan, possibly a Honda.
"I was right there beside him," she said. "It all happened so fast. I'm still in shock. One minute, he was sitting next to me eating chicken, the next... [there was] blood everywhere."
One of the men - described as "bald, heavy-set, about 35 to 38 years old and sporting some type of neck tattoo" - allegedly shot Kaleb with an unknown weapon.
His mother claimed he was likely looking for a different man, who was also at the Lee Street business that night and had instigated an altercation there the previous week.
"It was all a mix-up and now my boy is gone," said Quastasha.
Her son had reportedly just returned home from a three-year prison stint 34 days before the deadly shooting. A Texas inmate database listed Kaleb's 2012 offense as "aggravated assault with a deadly weapon."
"I was so excited when he came home last month," his mother told NewsWest 9. "I was so excited to see him turning his life around... He didn't deserve any of this."
The victim's body was transported to Tarrant County for an autopsy, said Midland Police.