At the height of the pandemic, Sacramento pizza restaurant owner Daljit Khangura found it difficult to hire employees willing to reliably turn up for work. A friend then recommended Shalini Thakur.

“She came in and managed the business as though it were her own,” Khangura, 63, told the Daily Mail. “She really took charge. Her work ethic was exceptional.”

Thakur, 38, later moved on to a management role at IHOP, though she and Khangura stayed close. He saw her as the sister he never had, while she viewed him as a brotherly presence in her life.

That bond made the phone call Khangura received last week especially devastating. An IHOP manager called him and began to cry, immediately signaling that something terrible had happened to Thakur.

His fears were confirmed. Thakur was fatally shot in broad daylight on September 8. Authorities have accused Rohit Rohit, a 22-year-old Indian national who worked as a DoorDash driver and regularly collected orders from her IHOP location, of killing her.

Khangura said he suspected Rohit even before learning his name. According to him, Rohit had allegedly stalked and harassed Thakur for nearly a year before her death.

Soon after the killing, the Department of Homeland Security said Rohit entered the United States unlawfully through Arizona in August 2023. DHS officials said Border Patrol agents arrested him before he was released by the Biden administration, though no reason for his release was given.

Thakur’s killing is devastating on its own. It has also renewed attention on other cases involving women and girls killed by people who entered the United States illegally, prompting broader questions over immigration enforcement and public safety failures.

In February 2024, Laken Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student, was attacked and murdered while jogging in Athens, Georgia. She was killed by José Antonio Ibarra, a Venezuelan man who had entered the US illegally.

A few months later, 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray was raped and strangled to death in Houston, Texas. Two illegal immigrants from Venezuela, Johan José Martínez-Rangel and Franklin José Peña Ramos, were both charged with capital murder and are awaiting trial.

And around the same time that Rohit crossed the southern border in 2023, Rachel Morin, a 37-year-old mother of five, was brutally raped and murdered by an illegal immigrant from El Salvador while on a hiking trail in Bel Air, Maryland.

Rachel’s brother Michael had been thinking of Thakur long before he even heard her name.

‘During the search for Rachel, I repeatedly thought about the next woman,’ Michael told the Daily Mail. ‘That hasn’t changed.’

‘The point of learning from Rachel’s case should not be winning a political argument. It should be preventing another family from joining ours.’

But if that is the lesson Michael has been asking the country to learn since August 2023, it appears class is still in session.

Khangura remembered Thakur telling him about Rohit’s apparent ‘obsession’ with her when it first began in October 2025. Initially, she dismissed him as ‘just a kid’ but soon, she realized his frequent presence was much more sinister.

And Khangura was concerned. Over the winter, he confronted Rohit at the IHOP, telling the man to leave his friend alone.

But it was to no avail.

For nearly a year, Rohit stalked, threatened and harassed Thakur, hiding an Apple AirTag under the hood of her car, slashing her tires and vowing to kill them both. At one point, he even made a copy of her apartment key and let himself into her home while she was asleep.

‘She woke up and started screaming for him to get out,’ Khangura said.

Rohit’s ‘fixation’ with Thakur was so concerning that law enforcement urged her to seek a restraining order, which she did in May. Police were instructed to arrest Rohit if he violated the order, and on July 29, Thakur filed a report to deputies, informing them Rohit had left random grocery items at her front door – a violation of the order that protected her, her home and her work.

The Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office said deputies tried to contact Rohit after the restraining order violation was reported but that they were not successful.

On September 8, as Thakur was being dropped off at work, Rohit confronted her. When she tried to run away, he shot her multiple times. He then approached her where she lay grievously wounded and shot her in the head at close range. Rohit fled the scene and ultimately killed himself during a standoff with police.

‘Politicians in Sacramento have blood on their hands,’ Khangura said. ‘The police failed her. The system failed her.’

He believes Thakur’s death is a direct result of Sacramento’s status as a sanctuary city and urged elected officials to enact a law that would prevent these attacks.

Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor and president of West Coast Trial Lawyers, told the Daily Mail that California not only has strong stalking laws, but ones that become even more protective when a restraining order is in place.

A restraining order would prohibit a person from owning a gun and could send someone to state prison for up to four years if they were to violate the order.

‘Unfortunately, in [Thakur’s] case, law enforcement did not or could not arrest Rohit after he violated the restraining order in late July,’ Rahmani said.

‘The stalker and her victim were not in a relationship, so it’s not a domestic violence case, but there’s an old expression that today’s domestic violence and stalking is tomorrow’s murder and unfortunately that’s exactly what happened here.’

Khangura said the only politician who has reached out to Thakur’s family in the wake of the shooting was Steve Hilton, the California Republican running for governor.

When Michael heard about Thakur’s killing, his first thoughts were of her family.

‘I know what it is like to watch somebody you love suddenly become part of a national story,’ he said.

‘I do not want to use another family’s loss to make a political point. But [the] government should learn from cases like Rachel’s. If somebody presents warning signs or authorities have already encountered them, agencies need to communicate and act effectively.’

Victor Martinez-Hernandez, the 24-year-old who killed Rachel, had previously been connected to a 2023 home invasion in Los Angeles, during which he assaulted a nine-year-old girl and her mother. He had crossed the southern border into the US after he was wanted in El Salvador for the murder of another woman.

Martinez-Hernandez was arrested and deported three times – on January 19, January 31 and February 6 – before he successfully entered the US unlawfully on February 13 near El Paso, Texas.

Michael said that learning about Martinez-Hernandez’s history was ‘incredibly difficult.’

‘My reaction was not simply political. It was, how did this happen? How did somebody repeatedly encounter the system and still end up here?’

On August 5, 2023, Rachel – a mother of five children between 8 and 18 – went for a run on the Ma & Pa Trail that her family grew up going to.

The family lived near the trailhead, and often jogged there together. Michael remembers training with Rachel, helping her work on breathing and going further distances. Shannon Morin, Michael’s wife, remembers taking her kids there with Rachel and Rachel’s kids.

‘It was just a safe place we could walk with the kids,’ Shannon, who was friends with Rachel long before she married Michael, told the Daily Mail. ‘We could decompress, hang out and talk and spend time with our babies.’

Michael and Shannon even married at Liriodendron, a historic mansion located on the Heavenly Waters Park – the park through which the Ma & Pa Trail runs.

‘After Rachel was murdered, it became very difficult for me to separate the trail from what happened to her,’ Michael said. ‘For a long time, it felt as though the worst thing that happened there had taken ownership of the entire place.’

The weekend of Rachel’s killing, Michael, Shannon and most of their family had traveled down to Kentucky to attend the funeral of their newborn niece.

In the beginning, Shannon believed that the killer must have been someone they knew, someone who would have knowledge that her family would be out of town that day. But after police released surveillance footage, Shannon was certain that whoever had raped and murdered Rachel was a stranger.

On June 14, 2024 – after a 10-month nationwide manhunt – Martinez-Hernandez was arrested in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

‘I have never wanted Rachel to become merely a symbol for one political side or another. Immigration policy matters because policies have real consequences, but Rachel was a person before she was an immigration debate.’

To Rachel’s brother, the question is not partisan. The question is whether the system has learned enough from Rachel’s death to prevent another family from having to experience the same thing.

‘Not every person who enters this country illegally is violent, and I do not think it is truthful or helpful to pretend otherwise,’ he said. ‘My concern is what happens when there are repeated encounters, warning signs or evidence that somebody may present a danger.’

Today, Michael and Shannon are focused on remembering Rachel as the bubbly, funny, strong-willed and active person she was.

‘She was really positive and optimistic. She was always working on herself, growing, learning,’ Shannon said.

In August 2025, Martinez-Hernandez was sentenced to life without parole for first-degree murder, rape and third-degree sex offence and kidnapping. He will serve the entire sentence in a Maryland prison.

‘For a long time, we needed people to pay attention to the man who killed Rachel because we needed to find him. We needed his face shown. We needed people looking for him. We needed the public’s help,’ Michael said.

‘We do not need to find him anymore. I think part of finishing that conversation is taking him out of it.’

Perhaps then some progress might come from the tragedy as it did with Riley’s death, which spurred the Laken Riley Act. It that requires the federal detention of illegal immigrants who have been arrested for burglary, theft, larceny, shoplifting, assault of a law enforcement officer or any crime that results in death or serious bodily injury to another person.

It was the first piece of legislation signed into law by President Donald Trump in his second term.

But for now, for Thakur’s family and friends, there is no avoiding the awful fact that whatever protection in law existed for Thakur, it was neither adequate nor enforced.

Khangura is still waiting to find out how Rohit was able to obtain a car and a gun, how he was able to work for DoorDash and why police did not arrest him before his actions proved fatal.

‘What’s it going to take for a politician to react?’ he asked. ‘Does it have to happen to their child? To their wife?

‘There has to be a law that will protect women.’

Meghan Markle appeared to pay a subtle tribute to Princess Diana when she selected the music for Prince Harry’s birthday post on Instagram yesterday.

The Duchess of Sussex, 45, celebrated Harry’s 42nd birthday by sharing nine never-before-seen photographs, accompanied by an indie-folk rendition of Tina Turner’s classic, ‘The Best’.

The choice is unlikely to have been accidental. The song holds deep personal meaning for both the Duke of Sussex and his older brother, the Prince of Wales, whose late mother was known to play it during drives that took them back to boarding school.

Prince William spoke about those memories in a 2021 episode of Apple Fitness+’s Time to Walk, explaining that Diana would put on music to ease her sons’ nerves as they returned to school.

“One of the songs I massively remember and has stuck with me all this time, and I still, to this day, still quite enjoy secretly, is Tina Turner’s The Best, because sitting in the back seat, singing away, it felt like a real family moment,” the future King said.

William recalled Diana singing “at the top of her voice” as the music kept him and Harry distracted during the journey to Ludgrove School in Berkshire, until they arrived and “reality kind of sunk in”.

“You’d be singing and listening to the music right the way out into the gates of school, when they dropped you off,” he said. “And, and that’s when reality kind of sunk in that you really were going back to school because before that, you’re lost in songs.”

He added: “You’ll want to play it again just to keep that family moment going. And when I listen to it now, it takes me back to those car rides and brings back lots of memories of my mother.”

On Tuesday, the Duchess shared intimate insights into the Sussexes’ family life with the release of nine new pictures to celebrate Harry’s 42nd birthday. 

Meghan, who boasts 4.8million followers on Instagram, uploaded the sea of images of the prince with her and their children with the caption: ‘He’s simply the best. Happy birthday, my love,’ along with a heart emoji.

The montage is accompanied by husband-wife musical duo The Hound + The Fox’s cover of Simply the Best.

In one sweet snap, Harry is captured on an outdoor adventure with Meghan, 45, alongside Prince Archie, seven, and Princess Lilibet, five, as well as their Labrador, Pula.

Believed to have possibly been taken at Earl Spencer’s home, Althorp, Harry is seen driving a quad bike down a narrow track with Lilibet and Archie sat on either side of an M&S food bag and Pula dutifully following behind. 

In another snap, Harry, who is wearing a Santa Barbara Fire Department cap, shared a kiss with Lilibet, who sported a bright headband and red and white patterned top, while enjoying a golf cart ride. 

In a sweet tribute to her mother, the 3D embellishments on Lilibet’s fashionable headband appear to be miniature Mahjong tiles – rectangular pieces used to play a traditional Chinese board game adored by the duchess.

Showcasing their close father-daughter bond, the montage also featured an image of Harry holding hands with Lilibet during a ski trip – with the young royal keeping warm in pink gloves and purple trousers, while her father donned black salopettes and a grey jacket.

Harry and Meghan are firm fans of the winter sport and often enjoy trips to the slopes together – including visits to Whistler Blackcomb in Canada and Montana’s Yellowstone Club.

One black-and-white photograph shared by Meghan showed the prince carrying Lilibet’s pink tasselled bicycle as they walked hand-in-hand.

In another, the young princess took a photograph of Harry, who playfully posed with a basket on his head, with a Polaroid camera as the family sat down for a dinner which appeared to include olives and fruit.

Proving she is quite the camerawoman, Lilibet drew comparisons to her aunt, the Princess of Wales, who is a keen amateur photographer and in 2015 became the first member of the Royal Family to take the official first images of a royal newborn.

Dressed in a pair of spotty pyjamas, Lilibet and her father were seen in another image enjoying a peaceful lake view from a balcony.

Meanwhile, Harry and his son Archie enjoyed some father-son bonding with a game of archery in another picture. The father-son duo wore matching outfits, including shorts and white T-shirts. 

Other images shared by the Duchess included an image of her and Harry sharing a warm embrace in a vineyard, while Archie is seen playing in the background.

Meghan chose a striking black-and-white photograph of the Duke, wearing sunglasses and a hat while looking out ahead deep in thought, as the first image of the carousel post. 

Some royal fans have suggested the snap may have been taken by the Sussexes’ go-to photographer and close friend, Misan Harriman, who has documented key events in their lives and is renowned for his black-and-white images.

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Soon after Meghan marked Harry’s birthday online, it emerged that the Duchess’s mobile number was reportedly being shared by parents at the school that Archie and Lilibet had just started. 

In a further security blow to the couple, screenshots from a WhatsApp group titled ‘Year 3’ that Meghan joined were said to be circulating online.

An alleged screenshot of the chat showed the duchess introducing herself with a message reading: ‘Hi moms! Thanks for the warm welcome [heart emoji]. So happy to be a part of this community xx’

The Sussexes refused to comment, but sources close to them said it was disappointing that fellow parents would seek to share such information.

Meghan is understood to have joined the group the night before Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet started at the school.

It emerged after Harry and Meghan decided to ‘reluctantly’ remove their children from the school they had just started over security fears regarding traffic.

The family’s bodyguards warned the couple that the busy commute was placing their unit ‘under strain’.

Rush hour meant the drive – supposed to take around 35 minutes – lasted as long as an hour, while on one journey a convoy carrying the prince and princess is said to have become separated, leaving the children ‘sitting ducks’ in stationary traffic.

One mother with two children at the school said Harry and Meghan’s decision to send their children there had been a coup and had excited many parents. But she added: ‘Parents at the school are completely baffled. You don’t need to be an expert to know how congested that area is. It’s one of the worst places to drive in the UK.’

Another mother said of the slow school run: ‘This was obviously going to happen.’

News of the WhatsApp leak was initially reported by The Sun.

Friends of the couple stressed that the decision to withdraw the children was not an issue with the school itself.

Archie and Lilibet will now join another school where they have already attended taster sessions. The Sussexes’ security, meanwhile, are said to be much happier that the new school will be a shorter commute from the family home.

But the fiasco has sparked questions over why the family’s drivers only tested the route during the summer holidays, amid claims that their return to the UK was ‘rushed’.

Their private protection team were seemingly unable to properly assess the hour-long journey to the unnamed school after the Sussexes announced the move in late August.

Former Met Police Chief Superintendent Dal Babu said: ‘It does beggar belief why they haven’t thought this through. I don’t think he [Harry] has helped himself or the situation by not arranging things in good time.’

Former head of royal protection Dai Davies also told LBC radio: ‘If you keep a low profile, most people outside the school wouldn’t know where you are, what they’re doing, and all the rest of it.

‘Do they really need to go in convoy with two little children on the school run? If they only just kept a little quieter, kept a lower profile, they’d be a lot safer in my view.’

The dramatic schools development came as it emerged that Harry’s demand for taxpayer-funded police protection is being ‘reviewed’ now he is back in Britain. 

The duke and duchess are said to have been informed that ‘a decision’ was made at a meeting last week to examine the threat to both of them.

The prince has been at loggerheads with the Home Office for years over its decision to remove his automatic right to security. Harry has long argued that he was born a prince and needs police protection when in the UK.

But he lost a series of legal battles against the Home Office which deemed he had forfeited the right to be able to call at will on taxpayer-funded protection after he quit as a frontline royal in 2020 and moved to a new life in California.

Only last year, after yet another defeat at the Royal Courts of Justice – against his father His Majesty’s government – the prince declared in a petulant BBC interview that he could not imagine a time when he could safely bring his family to his country of birth.

But now that he has had a sudden change of heart, bringing Meghan, Archie and Lilibet to live in the UK, his access to police protection is being reviewed, it was reported on Monday evening.

The decision is said to involve reviewing the risks to Prince Harry and also to his wife.

The driver accused of triggering a deadly Los Angeles bus crash that claimed the lives of two NBC journalists has been charged with murder.

Gage Weida, 31, and Daniel Castillo, 46, were killed after the Metro bus they were traveling on was struck by an SUV reportedly speeding through the area at about 5pm Tuesday.

In a second tragedy, an NBC News helicopter dispatched to cover the bus wreck crashed into a nearby parking lot roughly two hours later before erupting in flames.

NBC journalist Eliana Moreno, 38, and pilot George Marciniw, 70, died in the helicopter crash. A third person on the ground was also killed and has not yet been publicly identified.

Their colleague Robert Kovacik had rushed from the Metro bus crash scene, only to learn that the aircraft involved in the second fatal incident belonged to his own station.

Bailee Lynn Rios, 36, the SUV driver, was charged with murder Wednesday morning and ordered held on $4.03 million bail.

The Los Angeles Police Department said it planned to submit the case to the district attorney while its investigation into the fatal collision continued.

Witnesses said the SUV appeared to be moving at “freeway speed” when it slammed into the side of the Metro Line 166 bus.

Police said Rios was suspected of driving recklessly and running a red light. Investigators are also awaiting testing related to a possible DUI allegation.

Kovacik’s dash from one crash site to the other was broadcast on NBC 4, along with his frantic efforts to reach his colleagues.

‘Trust me, I am putting my own life in my own hands,’ he pleaded with firefighters and police blocking his path as black smoke billowed in front of him.

‘Dude, that’s my crew in there, that is my own crew.’

A police officer responded: ‘We are gonna get them evacuated. This isn’t safe.’

Kovacik was on-air covering the bus crash when his colleagues in the NBC 4 studio interrupted his report, instructing him to move towards the billowing smoke. 

‘Robert, we need you to move,’ an anchor said, interrupting his report. ‘Robert, we’re going to need you to move towards that smoke and get closer to that scene immediately.

‘We’re still working to get information on exactly what happened but we’re going to ask right now, as best you can, that you and your crew move in that direction immediately.’ 

The broadcast cut back to the studio as Kovacik made his way to the scene. 

‘We understand there may be an aircraft down. We don’t have any more specific information than that,’ anchor Colleen Williams said.

‘Robert is driving in the direction. We did see a huge plume of black smoke in the area.’

When Kovacik’s crew resumed their feed, NBC4 viewers saw the reporter begging law enforcement to let him on the scene. 

‘We know it’s something bad judging from the smoke,’ Williams said.

Kovacik turned back toward the camera to resume his report, telling his colleagues that the LAPD would soon be evacuating them from the area.

Describing the scene, he shared how there was a ‘fire that is spreading.’

That’s when he spotted Fox 11 reporter Ed Laskos and asked, ‘What are you hearing?’

Laskos put his arms around Kovacik and said: ‘It’s a chopper, a media chopper.’

‘It’s a chopper?’ Kovacik repeated back to him.

‘Yes, it’s a media chopper,’ Laskos said.

‘Are you ok? It’s not you guys, is it?’ Kovacik questioned, as a burst of flames exploded behind him.

A female reporter ran past the cameras in tears.

Kovacik turned back to the cameras and said: ‘We don’t know where the chopper is from, we don’t know if it even is a chopper. If it’s a news chopper, we are just looking right now.’

He spoke to police and witnesses at the scene who confirmed the helicopter went down, but could not confirm which news outlet it had been affiliated with.

At this point, NBC 4 did not know that the helicopter belonged to their station. 

LA Mayor Karen Bass was seen consoling Kovacik later that night when she and other elected officials spoke about the tragedy. 

The NewsChopper4 was flying over the area between two warehouses at the intersection of Nordhoff Street and DeSoto Avenue, near where an SUV crashed into a bus earlier in the night, when it suddenly lost altitude and plunged to the ground. 

Two people were killed in the bus crash, while six others were injured, some of whom were in critical condition.

The chopper appeared to have crashed next to two shipping containers and several vehicles that were parked in the area, causing a massive blaze that threatened four vehicles nearby.

Moreno, 38, was a veteran aerial reporter for NBC4 Los Angeles and Telemundo, who had been flying in news choppers since 2010 – covering police pursuits, wildfires, traffic and major local events. 

She began her career in the air after graduating from Chapman University in 2010, where she studied broadcast journalism and political science. 

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Moreno had worked at KCAL 9 and KCBS 2 before joining NBC and flying aboard NewsChopper4 around 2018 or 2019.

She was passionate about her role and frequently posted pictures of herself out in the field on her Instagram account Eli in the Heli.

One was captioned: ‘After working 76 hours since Sunday, I’m almost done! I can’t complain though because I have the best job in the world.’

She was due to soon marry her boyfriend Robert Barrientos, 47, after the couple announced their engagement on Facebook last October.

Moreno and Barrientos have been together for at least three years, according to posts on her public Instagram account.

Although the reporter never publicly announced the start of their relationship, she did start subtly tagging the father of two in reels with her dogs in 2023.

She made a post in May praising him for running a half-marathon with her. 

Moreno, who has had ‘bad asthma’ throughout her life, completed the race in under two hours, she revealed. 

‘I did something I never thought I would ever do,’ she captioned a photo of her and her partner with their race medals. ‘I surpassed everything I thought I could ever do, so let’s see what I do next!’

Marciniw, 70, was an experienced pilot who had logged more than 14,000 hours in the helicopter. He and Moreno had been flying together since 2023.

NBC4 and Telemundo said in a statement on Tuesday night: ‘We are deeply saddened to share that a helicopter providing aerial news coverage for NBC4 and Telemundo 52 was involved in a fatal accident in Los Angeles on Tuesday evening. 

‘We extend our heartfelt condolences to the families, friends and colleagues of those who lost their lives.’

The confirmation of the deaths came after a longtime NBC 4 Los Angeles news anchor confirmed to viewers live on air that the chopper was a ‘television news helicopter.’  

‘We are not in contact with our television news helicopter,’ Colleen Williams said through tears, while other reporters on the scene choked up.

‘We have lost contact with our people.’ 

Williams also confirmed that the news helicopter was from NBC Los Angeles, before the news station took a break to process the information. 

LA Fire Department Captain Branden Silverman earlier told reporters on the scene that the helicopter is ‘pretty well destroyed.’ 

A friend of the two helicopter victims also told Fox Los Angeles he was ‘hurt,’ as he suggested the helicopter suffered from engine failure.

‘I’m lost for words, I don’t know what to say,’ he said, describing the pilot as experienced and noting that the NBC reporter had recently been married.

‘It’s heartbreaking to see the engine quit,’ the friend said. 

The crash came as local media outlets rushed to get aerial footage of the fatal bus collision as people ran away from the scene and police cruisers sped toward the fiery explosion.

One of those killed was reportedly ejected from the bus, while the other was said to have been on board. 

An LA Urban Search and Rescue Team was also seen extricating multiple people from the vehicle, with at least one person found stuck underneath it.

She was eventually freed and quickly loaded into an ambulance in unknown condition with what crews on the scene described as ‘crushing’ injuries.

Soon after the bus crash, images emerged showing the front half of the Ford SUV embedded in the side of the Metro bus.

At the height of the response, more than 70 fire department personnel were at scene, a spokesman said at a news conference.

The intersection where the two fatal crashes occurred will now be closed for ‘quite some time,’ she noted. 

In a brief statement, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said she was ‘absolutely devastated by the loss of life in Chatsworth tonight.’

‘My heart is with the families and loved ones of those we lost in the tragic bus collision and helicopter crash,’ she posted on social media. 

‘I’m grateful to the city teams who responded so quickly,’ she added, as she urged the public to ‘please stay clear of the area as public safety officials remain on scene.’ 

California Governor Gavin Newsom also shared his condolences.

‘Our hearts are with the victims and families of tonight’s devastating Metro bus and helicopter crashes in Chatsworth, and with the entire NBC4 family,’ he said.

‘Thank you to the first responders working tirelessly tonight.’ 

Brendan Carr, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, added that it was ‘very sad news.’ 

Both the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board will investigate the helicopter crash.