A judge gave a Houston dad custody of his 4-year-old daughter, and she was due home that night. Police say her mother shot her, then herself

A child custody battle in Houston ended in tragedy when, police say, a mother fatally shot her 4-year-old daughter before turning the weapon on herself. The shooting happened on Tuesday evening, Sept. 29, just hours after a family court judge issued a temporary order granting primary care of the child to her father.

According to ABC7, the young victim, identified as Vivian Savella, was found dead from at least one gunshot wound on the third floor of a Memorial-area townhome on Terra Reserve Place. According to the Houston Police Department, officers responded to a shooting call at approximately 5:45 p.m. 

Witnesses inside the home, including the child’s stepfather and a childcare aide, reportedly heard gunshots before forcing their way into the room. Homicide investigators have spoken with both, according to ABC7.

The custody order had been finalized only hours earlier

Vivian’s 35-year-old mother, Cibelle Savella, was found next to her child with what police described as a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Although authorities initially said she might survive, a later report from The Houston Chronicle confirmed that she died of her injuries on Wednesday.

Details of the court proceedings emerged after the shooting. Earlier on Tuesday, a family court judge issued a temporary order granting Vivian’s father, Aaron Savella, exclusive rights to determine his daughter’s primary residence, medical care and education.

The court ruling also placed exceptionally strict restrictions on the mother. As reported by the New York Post, she was stripped of unsupervised access, ordered to pay child support and banned from attending school performances or extracurricular activities. She was also barred from speaking to Vivian in her native Portuguese unless a court-approved supervisor who spoke the language was present.

While the ruling stated that the mother could only see Vivian under continuous supervision, no supervisor was present at the time of the shooting. Legal representatives for the father explained that because the judge’s decision had only been finalized that afternoon, the court-appointed monitoring agency had not yet been formally notified or brought into the case.

The court order also failed to specify exactly how or where the immediate physical handoff of the child was supposed to take place. As a result, Vivian remained in the townhome where the shooting occurred.

In a statement released through family law attorney Charlotte Rainwater, Aaron Savella and his relatives expressed their grief.

“Our family is devastated. Vivian was four years old. She was loved without limit by her father, Aaron, and by everyone whose life she touched,” the statement read.

The statement also emphasized the father’s compliance with the legal process, noting that he had done everything required to protect his daughter.

The family lawyer said she’s never witnessed a tragedy like this

“He trusted the courts. He followed every order,” the statement continued. It added that a judge had placed Vivian in her father’s care on Tuesday and that she was supposed to come home to him that evening, but “she never did.”

The family also urged the public to remember the struggles faced by protective fathers and families involved in custody disputes.

Rainwater said that in her 28 years of practicing family law in Harris County, she had never witnessed a tragedy like this. She acknowledged the heavy emotional toll of the case but said no one in the courtroom that afternoon could have anticipated that the ruling would be followed by such immediate and devastating violence.