On the morning of August 8, 2025, Brittany Shaw took her dog, Teddy, for their usual early-morning walk outside the Tustin, California, apartment she shared with her fiancée, Aimee Hidalgo. Surveillance footage captured Brittany leaving around 5:10 a.m. and returning approximately 10 minutes later. She unlocked the door and went inside.
What happened next was captured on the couple’s own surveillance system. Brittany was shot nine times.
Aimee Hidalgo, an Orange County Sheriff’s Department deputy, told investigators she believed someone was breaking into their apartment and didn’t realize she was shooting her fiancée until it was too late.
But Brittany’s family says what they’ve learned about the evidence has left them questioning whether this was really a tragic mistake.
In this look into the headlines, breaking news reporter Briana Whitney investigates the death of Brittany Shaw and speaks one-on-one with Brittany’s sister, Janaea Parrish, about the questions their family has been asking for more than a year.
You’ll hear about Brittany Shaw’s final dog walk on August 8, 2025, in Tustin, California, the phone call that informed Janaea Parrish that her younger sister had been killed, why Brittany’s family initially believed she had been shot seven times—and how they later learned the actual number was nine, the evidence Brittany’s family observed when they visited the apartment, the location of blood and bullet holes that made them question the original explanation, the neighbor’s doorbell-camera footage capturing Brittany shortly before her death, and the surveillance footage from inside Brittany and Aimee’s apartment that investigators say captured the shooting. Was it a mistake or something more?
Brittany and Aimee met while working at the Orange County jail in 2022. Brittany worked in health services, while Aimee was a deputy with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.
They became engaged in November 2024 and were planning a wedding for November 2025. According to Janaea, Brittany’s family believed the couple was happy. Brittany hadn’t expressed concerns about the relationship, and her loved ones weren’t aware of an obvious motive for anyone to hurt her.
But when Brittany’s family entered the couple’s approximately 500-square-foot studio apartment after investigators finished processing it, the scene wasn’t what they expected.
Janaea says they observed blood and bullet damage deeper inside the apartment rather than immediately inside the entrance. Then they learned that the couple’s own cameras had captured what happened.
Brittany’s family has not seen that footage.
Seven months after Brittany’s death, another revelation came.
On March 9, 2026, the Orange County District Attorney’s Office announced that Aimee Hidalgo had turned herself in to the Tustin Police Department. According to the information released by prosecutors, Brittany had been shot nine times, including multiple times in the head, and one of those shots was fired from less than eight inches away, but Aimee was not charged with murder. She was charged with one felony count of voluntary manslaughter and an enhancement for the personal use of a firearm.
If convicted as charged, she could face up to 21 years in prison.
Aimee was later released on $155,000 bond and has remained on administrative leave from the Orange County Sheriff’s Department. She has not responded to our requests for an interview.
At the center of the case is a question Brittany’s family still can’t answer:
If Aimee truly believed an intruder had entered the apartment, how did Brittany end up being shot nine times?
And one of the most important pieces of evidence may eventually provide answers: the surveillance video from inside the apartment that captured the shooting itself.
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As someone who use to work at a court and police station, police have a union, lawyers advise them to go COMPLETELY silent (especially when guilty), I hate to say it but it’s very rare to receive justice no matter the evidence or how many people stand behind the victim 😣, my thoughts and sympathy go out to Brittany’s family and friends.
What is happening to our laws & justice system ⚖️?
RIP cousin, u will get justice
Bruhh…. she literally has the same name as me . I can’t watch this !!!!!😅😅😭😭.
If this was a person of color, they would definitely be charged with 1st degree murder. The system is corrupt.
Even if she thought it was an intruder, why shoot 9 times?!??
8 inches from her fiancé’s head, but can’t see it’s her?