HOUSTON --
A local high school senior who mysteriously died the night of her prom was buried Friday.
Many of her co-workers and classmates in attendance wore T-shirts with her picture.
Exactly one week ago, Jacqueline Gomez, 17, was attending her prom. The senior from MacArthur High School then went to bed that night in a room booked by her date’s mother.
She never woke up.
“You expect something to happen and then nothing happens the way you want it to turn out,” said Eduardo Araujo, who attended the funeral. “Your life can be taken shortly in a matter of moments, a matter of seconds.”
Fernanda Carreon knew Gomez at school.
“In class I go in and I just wait for her to come in, and like every time someone opens the door it’s so hard ‘cause I just look at her seat and she’s not there. She used to sit in front of me,” Carreon said.
Police said the teen’s date, whose name was never released, was not a suspect. But they did find alcohol and prescription pain killers in the room.
Texts obtained by KHOU reveal the drug was allegedly hydrocodone.
Yet friends insist that was never Jackie, who dreamed of going to college while she worked at a grocery store.
“We were very proud of her,” Carreon said. “That she was getting her things together. It’s sad that like this happened. Like with two weeks left of school.”
“But hopefully it opened up her friend’s eyes,” Araujo said. “How they party, how they do things now.”
Many could not ignore the untimeliness of the death. Even with autopsy results due within weeks, there may never completely be peace.