Denver shootings: Six-year-old's death kept from injured mother
Ashley Moser drifted in and out of consciousness in a hospital intensive care unit, bullets lodged in her throat and a gunshot wound to her stomach.
In her waking moments, she called for her six-year-old daughter Veronica, but nobody had the heart to tell the 25-year-old that her little girl was already dead, the youngest victim killed at the Aurora cinema in one of the worst mass shootings in US history.
“All she’s asking about, of course, is her daughter,” said Ashley Moser’s aunt, Annie Dalton. “She was a vibrant six-year-old. She was excited, she’d just learned how to swim. She was a great little girl, excited about life – she should be at six years old.”
Veronica was among the 12 people killed when the gunman barged into the cinema, set off gas canisters and opened fire as the audience dived for cover. Dozens of others were injured, including Ashley Moser and six others who are in a critical condition.
Colorado authorities have released the names of those killed – eight men, three women and Veronica. The oldest victim was 51-year-old Gordon Cowden.
All died of gunshot wounds, according to the Arapahoe County coroner’s office.
One of the 12, Matthew McQuinn, died after diving in front of his girlfriend and her older brother to shield them from the gunfire, his family’s lawyer said.
For Alex Sullivan, it was to be a weekend of fun. He planned to ring in his 27th birthday with friends at the special midnight showing of 'The Dark Knight Rises' and then celebrate his first wedding anniversary today.
“He was a very, very good young man,” said his uncle Joe Loewenguth. “He always had a smile, always made you laugh. He had a little bit of comic in him. Witty, smart. He was loving, had a big heart.”
Micayla Medek, 23, was also among the dead, her father’s cousin, Anita Busch, said. Ms Busch said the news, while heartbreaking, was a relief for the family after an agonising day of waiting for news.
“I hope this evil act ... doesn’t shake people’s faith in God,” she said.
Yesterday morning, the parents of John Larimer, of Crystal Lake, Illinois, were told by US Navy officials that their 27-year-old son was one of the 12 killed.
He was with a unit that belongs to US Fleet Cyber Command/US Tenth Fleet at Buckley Air Force.
US Air force reservist Sgt Jesse Childress, 29, a cyber-systems operator, was also among the victims and another reservist was wounded in the shootings.
A blogger and aspiring sports reporter who recently wrote of surviving a Toronto shopping mall shooting last month was killed.
The death of Jessica Ghawi, 24, who was also known as Jessica Redfield, was a “complete and utter shock”, said her brother, Jordan Ghawi.
Aurora police chief Dan Oates said 10 victims died at the cinema and two others died from their injuries later.
Mr Ghawi said on his website that a man who was with his sister at the theatre described the chaos, saying he and Jessica Ghawi dropped to take cover when the gunman first started shooting.
Ms Ghawi was shot in the leg, her brother said, describing details relayed to him by a man identified on the blog only as a mutual friend named Brent.
The man was then shot, but he continued helping Ms Ghawi before he realised she had stopped screaming. The man said she had been shot in the head.
Ms Ghawi moved to Denver from Texas about a year ago and friends and colleagues described her as outgoing, smart and witty.
She blogged at length about surviving the Eaton Centre mall shooting on June 2 in Toronto, Canada, that killed two people and injured several others.
“I was shown how fragile life was on Saturday. I saw the terror on bystanders’ faces. I saw the victims of a senseless crime. I saw lives change. I was reminded that we don’t know when or where our time on Earth will end. When or where we will breathe our last breath,” she wrote of the Toronto rampage.
The other victims were Alexander Boik, Jonathan Blunk, Rebecca Wingo and Alexander Teves, according to the coroner’s office.
