G$ Lil Ronnie & Daughter Were Celebrating Her Belated Birthday When Murdered

Texas rapper G$ Lil Ronnie and his 5-year-old daughter were shot dead at a car wash Monday morning just as their post-birthday festivities were getting underway, the slain artist's videographer tells TMZ Hip Hop.

Mello Vision has shot dozens of music videos and social content for Ronnie, and he tells us he's generally confused about the murders. If there was a threat to Ronnie's life, Mello would have felt it because they were frequently together at the same locations.

Mello says Ronnie was out late on March 2 and woke up early in an effort to spend intimate time with his daughter on the morning of the 3rd, when they were both killed.

Ronnie and Mello were supposed to connect on a music video run for weeks, but schedules kept clashing.

They took a biz trip out to California in December, where they linked with Soulja Boy, but Mello acknowledges Ronnie was always thinking about his kid.

Ronnie carved out time during the trip to go shopping for his daughter, buying her some shoes and clothes.

Ronnie often bragged about being the biggest gambler in the city -- and while Mello says his bro liked to shoot dice, he doesn't know of any outstanding debts that would have gotten him killed.

Shamon Jones, R'Mani's grieving mother, was also forced to set up an official GoFundMe link after noticing scammers were trying to profit off his and his daughter's deaths.

Police are actively on the case and labeled 2 suspects as stone-cold cowards at a press conference earlier today.