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BOYLE HEIGHTS, CA— Anna Del Rio is on a crusade that no parent ever wants to be on. She is trying to put the scum who killed her only child behind bars for good. Del Rio’s 20-year-old daughter Teresa, a resident of Eagle Rock and a Glendale College student, was shot to death by a gunman in the Silver Lake section of Los Angeles on the evening of June 6, 1999, as she drove friends home. Teresa's three passengers were unhurt and drove her to nearby Queen of Angels-Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center where she died several hours later. “She fought for her life for six hours in surgery,” recalls Del Rio, the wife of retired newsman and public relations executive Fernando Del Rio. “They gave her 14 pints of blood, but they could not save her life. He destroyed her insides with the powerful gun that he used.” The killer, a gang member, was later arrested and charged with committing two other murders he was wanted for at the time of Del Rio’s death. But the Del Rio family has had to watch him being prosecuted for those crimes, while waiting for prosecutors to continue developing a strong enough case to charge him with the murder of their daughter. Meanwhile, Del Rio has become an anti-violence advocates. Del Rio says she flew to Washington D.C. last year and met with President Bill Clinton to discuss her daughter's murder and gun violence in the country. She became actively involved in Steve Cooley’s successful campaign for district attorney, believing a tougher anti-violence posture was needed in that office. A group called First Monday even used her daughter's image on an anti-gun violence campaign. Now Anna Del Rio has broadened that campaign to Los Angeles which has again become the gang violence capital of the world. After falling steadily from 1996 to 1999, gang murders in the city increased 143 per cent last year when 331 people died because of gang violence, in contrast to 136 in 1999. On Monday, Del Rio and City Councilman Nick Pacheco launched a new anti-gun violence billboard campaign, featuring billboards with the faces of four women and children killed on Los Angeles streets, including Teresa. The billboards, which are 6 feet by 12 feet in size and will go up at 60 locations throughout the city, will read: "Gun Violence Ended Our Lives: Stop the Violence” with a second line reading “Guns Ended the Lives of 149 L.A. County Kids Last Year.” “I'm hoping the billboard campaign will make the community more aware that it could happen to anyone's child,” says Anna Del Rio. “I also hope that the billboards encourage witnesses to do the right thing and come forward with any information on unsolved murder cases.” Sadly, Del Rio found almost no support for her billboard campaign, other than Pacheco, a former prosecutor, whose district has one of the highest violence rates in the city. “I took the idea for anti-gun violence billboards to several people with no response,” she said. “Councilmember Pacheco was the only one that was interested in doing it. He said this is a serious problem, and he thought the billboard was a good idea He took the initiative. He took the time to get 60 donated billboards from Vista Media.” “When Anna asked us to get involved, I couldn't say no,” said Pacheco. “We need to work together to stop gun violence and protect our children. This billboard campaign will help raise awareness of the problem.” --------------------------------------------------------------------------------