A GTA family is struggling to understand why someone would have shot their daughter, sister or mother to death.

"I don't believe it," 12-year-old Odalys Mendez told CTV Toronto on Tuesday about her mother Evelyn Alfaro Mendez's murder.

"I just wanted to be like her when I grow up. I wanted to be like how beautiful she was and everything."

As her grandmother comforted her, Odalys said she wished she could tell her mom: "I love you and I miss you and I wish you'd never gone."

Evelyn Mendez was found slumped over the wheel of an SUV with early Monday morning. She left her home in Mississauga at around 7:30 p.m. for an evening out. She was found hours later on Talwood Drive, a quiet residential street in Toronto's Don Mills neighbourhood. The vehicle was still running and the lights were on.

An autopsy conducted Tuesday confirmed the gunshot caused Mendez's death.

Police didn't find a gun in the vehicle.

Homicide detectives are calling the death "suspicious." They have no idea why the woman would have ended on that street.

Detectives spent the better part of Monday interviewing friends and family members, in an effort to determine where the woman went between 7:30 and 9:30 p.m. She had reportedly been headed to a downtown bar.

Sister Claudia Martinez wonders if someone was following her sister. "But why would someone do something like that?" she wondered.

Det. Sgt. Terry Browne of Toronto Police's homicide squad told reporters Tuesday, "We want to peel back the layers of her lifestyle -- who she may have been associated with, where she may of been coming from, whom she may have been going to."

Mendez leaves three children behind.

Friends have created a Facebook tribute page to honour Mendez's memory. On it, someone left the message, "If I could turn back time and warn you."

CTV Toronto's Austin Delaney reported that a cousin of Mendez's had been shot execution-style seven years ago in the back of a taxi that armed men forced to pull over. No arrest was ever made in that case.

"I don't want to believe there is (a connection), but I don't think so," Martinez said, adding she prays people will come forward with information.

Police are asking anyone with information to please contact them at 416-808-7400, Crime Stoppers anonymously at 416-222-TIPS (8477), online at www.222tips.com, or text TOR and your message to CRIMES (274637).

With a report from CTV Toronto's Austin Delaney