Sacrifice: The forgotten victims of the Las Vegas massacre had lives

by WorldTribune Staff, Oct. 15, 2017

First of Two Parts:  [Second Part]

The Oct. 1 massacre in Las Vegas killed 58 people and wounded 489 at the Route 91 Harvest festival. Four days later the The Clark County Coroner released the names of all 58 victims who were attending the outdoor country music concert. They ranged in age from 20 to 67 and hailed from states throughout the nation and Canada. All had lives to treasure.

Hannah Ahlers, 34, with husband and children.

Hannah Ahlers, 34, Beaumont, Calif.

The mother of three young children was with her husband of 17 years when she was killed .

“She was beautiful inside and out, and loved life and people,” her brother, Lance Miller, told the Redlands Daily Facts. “She was our sunshine.”

She was a stay-at-home mother of three in Beaumont, Calif.

Ahlers and her husband, Brian, had three children.

 

Heather Alvarado, 35. / Cedar City Fire Dept.

Heather Alvarado, 35, Cedar City, Utah

Heather Alvarado, 35, Cedar City, Utah

Heather made the three-hour drive to the weekend concert with her daughter who was unharmed in the shooting.

Family and friends in Cedar City where her husband Albert was a 7-year member of the Fire Department received confirmation of her death one day later.

Heather Alvarado ran an in-home day care center and worked with the department’s Ladies Auxiliary.

“This is part of our family,” Fire Chief Mike Phillips said. “There’s no question that we are going to feel the soreness and loss from this senseless act of violence from this coward for years to come.”

 

Dorene Anderson, 49.

Dorene Anderson, 49, Anchorage, Alaska

Anderson was at the concert with her husband.

The Alaska Housing Finance Corporation, where her husband, John, is employed, issued a statement from the family.

“She…was the most amazing wife, mother and person,” the statement read. “We are so grateful and lucky for the time that we did have with her.

 

Carrie Barnette, 34.

Carrie Barnette, 34, Riverside, Calif.

Carrie worked at the Pacific Wharf Café, in Anaheim. Friends and family described her as an upbeat and happy, a lover of animals who enjoyed country music.

She was shot in the left side of her chest and died with a friend by her side, said her cousin, Janice Chambers.

“I will miss your kindness and generosity towards others,” wrote a friend Nicole Johnson. “You’re now reunited with your beloved grandparents. RIP sweet Carrie.”

 

Jack and Laurie Beaton.

Jack Beaton, 54, Bakersfield, Calif.

Beaton was celebrating his 23rd wedding anniversary with his wife, Laurie, when the gunfire started.

He told his wife to get on the ground and draped his body over hers to protect her. He was hit. He was bleeding profusely. But he had just enough time to tell her he loved her.

“I love you, too. I’ll see you in heaven,” Laurie responded, according to her father, Jerry Cook. The couple had two children.

Jack worked in construction and Laurie in human resources at an energy company. But their lives centered around their children, watching their daughter cheerleading or taking their son dirt-bike riding in rural areas near Bakersfield.

Steve Berger with his children Hannah, 15, Harrison, 12 and Harlow, 9.

Steve Berger, 44, Minnesota

Steve Berger was celebrating his 44th birthday with a trip to Las Vegas with friend and co-worker Josh Decker.

Tall, gregarious, an award-winning financial planner and single father of three, Berger “was just so nice to everyone and full of life, just the kind of guy everyone wanted to be around,” said Dorothy Fuller, director of operations at EFS Advisors, the Cambridge, Minn., firm where he worked.

Berger was a standout basketball player and straight-A student at Wauwatosa West High School in Wisconsin, and graduated from St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minn. in 1995, said Richard and Mary Berger, his parents.

“He always had a smile on his face. He always would help you,” Mary Berger said. “He was very kind. He walked into the room and he just kind of lit up the room. He just loved life.”

“The owner of the company said he has never seen a man have better time management in the world. He could juggle his business with taking care of three children,” Richard Berger said, noting that he spent his time off ferrying his children between school and sports practices, and also coached youth basketball and football. “He was a devoted father. You couldn’t ask for a better father and a better man.”

 

Candice Bowers with her children, 16-year-old Katie, left, the recently adopted Ariel, 2 and 20-year-old Kurtis.

Candice Bowers, 40, Garden Grove, Calif.

Bowers was a single mother of three who had recently adopted her youngest child, a 2-year-old girl.

“She stepped in without even blinking and took this infant into her home,” her aunt Michelle Bolks told The Arizona Republic, adding, “She didn’t question it. She didn’t think about it. She just knew she needed to be there.”

Bowers worked as a waitress at Mimi’s Cafe, had a wide circle of friends and enjoyed spending time with her children, 16-year-old Katie, 20-year-old Kurtis, and the recently adopted Ariel, 2.

Bowers had an infectious laugh that came with a wide grin, Bolks said. But she could also be tough as nails and was fiercely loyal. Bowers loved country music and family members encouraged her to have a good time at the music festival.

“She was doing what she loved, enjoying a rare couple days away, with her best friend,” Bolks said.

 

Denise Burditus of Martinsburg, W.V. / AP

Denise Burditus, 50, Martinsburg, W.V.

Tony Burditus knew he’d met his match way back in high school. In the decades since, he and Denise Burditus had two children and four grandchildren, with a fifth on the way.

The couple hugged and grinned big for a photo at the Route 91 Harvest Festival, the Mandalay Bay hotel in the background. The picture was posted on Facebook, not long before the shooting broke out.

She later died in her husband’s arms. “It saddens me to say that I lost my wife of 32 years, a mother of two, soon to be grandmother of five this evening in the Las Vegas shooting,” Tony later wrote in his own post. “Denise passed in my arms. I LOVE YOU BABE.”

The couple was trying to escape the concert when she was struck. She went down immediately. Someone nearby helped move her to a safer area, a nurse tried to help, and a stranger in a truck drove her to the hospital. But it was too late.

Denise Burditus had a career in banking. Last year she decided to go back to school. Her husband said she spent all her free time studying, but still made time for their annual, month-long summer trip with the grandchildren — who called her “G-Ma”. “Denise always had a smile on her face,” Tony said. “Denise never met a stranger.”

 

Sandy Casey. / Manhattan Beach Unified School District

Sandy Casey, 34, Redondo Beach, Calif.

Teachers at Manhattan Beach (Calif.) Middle School on Oct. 2 had to deliver the tragic news to their students: one of their own died in the Las Vegas shooting.

Sandy Casey, a Vermont native who moved to California, was a special education teacher for nine years. She was engaged to be married and attended the concert with her fiancee.

District superintendent Michael Matthews said “We lost a spectacular teacher who devoted her life to helping some of our most needy students.”

 

Andrea Castilla / AP

Andrea Castilla, 28, Huntington Beach, Calif.

Andrea Castilla didn’t know it, but her boyfriend of seven months, Derek Miller, was planning to propose marriage during the weekend of the Route 91 Harvest festival in Las Vegas.

Castilla, a makeup artist at Sephora, had turned 28 on Sept. 29 and was celebrating in Las Vegas with her boyfriend, sister and a group of friends.

“I would visit her at Sephora on my lunch break even if it was only for 10 minutes,” Miller, 24, said in a phone interview.

She was shot in the head, and her boyfriend, sister and sister’s fiancé carried her out of the crowd, dodging bullets themselves.

With bullets flying around them, they carried her over a fence to a road, where they flagged down a driver who took them to a hospital.

Her brother, Adam Castilla, said the siblings were raised by their father after their mother died of cancer when Andrea was 13. The weekend before her death, Andrea Castilla told her brother that she wanted to pursue a career as a makeup artist for cancer survivors.

“She wanted to make them feel beautiful,” Adam Castilla said.

 

Denise Cohen / AP

Denise Cohen, 58, Carpinteria, Calif.

When Jeff Rees thinks of his mother, one thing keeps coming to mind: her laugh.

“When she would take me to the movies as a kid, I was just waiting to hear her laugh because it would just crack me up,” he said.

Kristal Vogel never saw her big sister without a smile. “I’ve known her my whole life and … she’s never said anything negative,” Vogel said. “Even when she was having a bad day, she’d be trying to cheer everybody up.”

Cohen was killed along with her boyfriend, Derrick “Bo” Taylor, as they attended the Route 91 Harvest country music festival in Las Vegas.

“She just loved music, she loved being outside in the sun,” Vogel said.

Cohen enjoyed dressing up, donning plenty of accessories and dancing, Vogel said, like she was doing Sunday night.

 

Austin Davis/ AP

Austin Davis, 29, Riverside, Calif.

Austin Davis was a pipefitter for UA Local 364, which covers San Bernardino and Riverside counties, along with Edwards Air Force Base.

On Facebook he posted photos of himself at work and of the local union outfit’s insignia: A skull with an American flag do-rag and the words “Union Til I Die.”

His girlfriend of nine years, Aubree Hennigan, commented on the photo: “Love your dedication baby!”

Davis played softball and enjoyed fishing and skiing with his friends. He joined friends to attend the Route 91 Harvest festival.

Davis last called Hennigan around 8 p.m. Sunday. The gunfire started about two hours later.

 

Thomas Day / Facebook

Thomas Day, Jr., 54, Corona, Calif.

Thomas Day Jr. worked as a home builder and attended the Route 91 country music festival in Las Vegas with his four children, who are in their 20s and 30s.

Day worked as an estimator at Portrait Construction, his family’s business where his father is the CEO.

“He was the best dad. That’s why the kids were with him,” said his father, Thomas Day Sr.

“His kids are with me right now. They’re crushed.”

 

Christiana Duarte aspired to a top job in professional sports.

Christiana Duarte, 22, Torrance, Calif

Christiana Duarte was visiting Las Vegas with her parents, but went to the concert without them. Officials found her cell phone and ID, but it was two days before her parents could locate their daughter.

Redondo Beach native Christiana Duarte — known as Chrissy — came from a family of baseball players.

Her father, Michael, always took her to Dodgers games. Her brother Mikey played shortstop at UC Irvine and was drafted by the Chicago White Sox. Her cousins Gerald and Brandon Laird have played pro ball and Brandon got the news of his cousin’s death in Japan, where he plays for the Nippon-Ham Fighters.

Duarte followed her family into sports — not on the field, but in the front office. She started her first full-time job in September as a fan services associate with the Los Angeles Kings hockey team.

Chrissy was at the Route 91 Harvest country music festival with Mikey’s girlfriend, Ariel Romero, a law student at Chapman University.

As they stood at the concert, Romero watched Duarte fall to the ground. As she moved to assiste here, she was shot in the face. Someone treated her wound and carried her to a paramedic — leaving Duarte behind.

Romero had surgery Oct. 3 and was expected to survive. Duarte’s death was confirmed late on Oct. 2.

 

Stacee Etcheber / AP

Stacee Etcheber, 50, Novato, Calif.

As people around them started falling to the ground, Stacee Etcheber watched as her husband, an officer with the San Francisco Police Department, rushed to help them.

Next, they got separated and then she herself was shot.

Etcheber was a popular hair stylist and mother of two young children. An online fundraiser for her family had raised over $200,000 as of Oct. 5.

“Stacee was taken in a senseless act of violence as her husband, SFPD Officer Vinnie Etcheber, heroically rushed to aid shooting victims in Las Vegas on Sunday,” San Francisco Police Chief William Scott said in a statement.

 

Brian Fraser, 39, La Palma, Calif.

Brian Fraser, a vice president of sales at a Southern California mortgage company, was known as a family man.

He was at the concert with a group of 20 family members and friends, none of whom sustained serious injuries, according to The Orange County Register.

Fraser’s son, Nick Arellano, 25, told The Register that his father loved to hunt, deep-sea fish, snowboard and attend his children’s sporting events. He had recently obtained his private pilot’s license.

He became an ordained minister in order to officiate the Arellano’s wedding in July, and he spoke these words with a beaming smile: “Love and respect. The result is the best of what marriage has to offer.”

Fraser had married Arellano’s mother when Arellano, now 25, was still a teenager. “He served as my rock and my mentor,” Arellano told the San Bernardino Sun. “He became my dad and my father figure.”

Fraser, his current wife and Arellano attended the Route 91 Harvest festival together. Though Arellano had to leave early to prepare for classes at UCLA, the others stayed. Frazer was shot as he pushed toward the stage in anticipation of Jason Aldean performing “Dirt Road Anthem,” one of his favorites.

 

Keri Galvan and daughter.

Keri Galvan, 31, Thousand Oaks, Calif.

Keri Galvan had three children under the age of 10.

In her profile photo, her children walk hand in hand on a school track.

They were close to the stage when the shooting started. Galvan was struck in the head and her husband, a Marine who served in Iraq, tried to save her. “He gave her CPR, but she was already gone,” said Galvan’s sister, Lindsey Poole.

Galvan was a server at Mastro’s Steakhouse and had an uncanny ability to remember her customers’ orders or their special occasion, Poole said.

In a post on a GoFundMe page established in Galvan’s memory, her sister Lindsey Poole said Galvan attended the Route 91 Harvest festival with her husband and friends.

Stefanie Reines, a friend, wrote on Twitter that Galvan was a “beautiful, amazing, kind and generous person who made everyone smile.”

 

Dana Gardner

Dana Gardner, 52, Grand Terrace, Calif.

When Bob Dutton became the San Bernardino County assessor-recorder-clerk, he knew a strong and experienced deputy would be essential to do the job.

Dana Gardner was just that person. As the deputy recorder-county clerk, “she was one of my go-to people,” Dutton said. “If you needed advice or questions came up, she had the answer.”

Gardner, of Grand Terrace, had traveled to Las Vegas with one of her daughters to attend the Route 91 Harvest Festival.

The daughter, who was unharmed, contacted Dutton’s office and said she and her mother had become separated. About 7:30 a.m. Monday, one of Dutton’s colleagues received the news. Gardner was dead.

San Bernardino was the site of the terrorist attack that left 14 dead and 22 wounded in 2015.

 

Angela Gomez, 20, Riverside, Calif.

At a candlelight vigil, Angela Gomez’ father thanked the crowd for coming “to celebrate our angel.”

Family and friends speaking at the vigil at Riverside City College, Calif., where Angie was studying nursing.

“The lord works in a strange ways and this is his way,” Angie Gomez’ father, Steve Gomez, told KTLA at the vigil. “It was a calling.”

Angie had spent months planning the trip to Las Vegas with her boyfriend Ethan Sanchez, whom she met in high school, according to KTLA. “She was a daughter, she was a sister, she was my life,” Sanchez said at the vigil.

 

Charleston Hartfield.

Charleston Hartfield, 34, Las Vegas

Las Vegas Police Officer Charleston Hartfield was off duty when he attended the Route 91 Harvest Festival, one of many law enforcement officers who went to the country music concert.

Hartfield posted a picture from the concert on Facebook before the gunfire broke out. As news of the massacre spread, friends began posting on Hartfield’s page, urging him to let them know he was OK. He never responded.

“I don’t know a better man than Charles. They say it’s always the good ones we lose early. There’s no truer statement than that with Charles,” Hartfield’s friend Troy Rhett told the Review-Journal.

Hartfield enlisted in the Army in July 2000 and became a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division, ultimately rising to the rank of sergeant first class.

He deployed to Iraq during the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 and served in a task force that was awarded a presidential unit citation for “extraordinary heroism.” According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Hartfield coached youth football.

“By all accounts he was a special human being, someone who carried the best virtues and characteristics from this division with him beyond his service here,” the 82nd Airborne said in a statement.

 

Chris Hazencomb

Chris Hazencomb, 44, Camarillo, Calif.

Colleagues and relatives described Chris Hazencomb as a kind and selfless man, a friend and co-worker who loved talking sports.

Hazencomb’s Aunt Carolyn Hazencomb said Chris lived with his mother in Camarillo. Chris was 6-feet-5, so he would often reach to top shelves at grocery stores to get what his aunt needed, she said.

He was at the country music festival Sunday with a friend who has two children, she said.

“He gave his life for the person that he was with at the show, at the concert. He covered her so that she wouldn’t get shot,” Carolyn Hazencomb said.

Chris Hazencomb graduated from Thousand Oaks High School in 1991, said Principal Lou Lichtl. He had worked as a self-checkout host at the Walmart Neighborhood Market in Camarillo since 2013, said Walmart spokesman Charles Crowson.

 

Jennifer Topaz Irvine.

Jennifer Topaz Irvine, 42, San Diego, Calif.

Jennifer Topaz Irvine was a family-law attorney in San Diego who did her undergraduate work at the University of San Diego and later the California Western School of Law, according to the Union-Tribune.

Thomas Slattery, a fellow attorney, wrote on his Facebook page: “My good friend, colleague, and business partner Jennifer Irvine was killed by a madman at the festival in Las Vegas. A tragic loss of a kind, generous, and beautiful lady,” he wrote. “Rest in peace Topaz.”

As the music blared, Irvine was holding hands with her friends, singing and dancing, when the bullet struck her.

Irvine, a graduate of California Western School of Law, opened her own family law and criminal defense firm in 2011 and was a television commentator on criminal trials. But she also led a busy life outside of work, earning a black belt in taekwondo, doing yoga and snowboarding.

Before she died, Kraska said she already had her eyes set on her next challenge: skydiving.

 

Teresa Nicol Kimura.

Teresa Nicol Kimura, 38, Placentia, Calif.

Teresa Kimura was known by her middle name, Nicol, her huge heart and her infectious laugh, friends said.

“Oh man, she was the life of the party without having to need all of the attention. If she was in the room, your attention was just drawn to her, because of her smile and her laugh,” said friend Chad Elliott.

Kimura graduated from El Dorado High School, Cal State Fullerton and worked for the state government.

Elliott met Kimura, who went by Nicol, after her divorce five years ago. They started attending concerts together because of their shared love of live music. They had attended 15 concerts this year alone, including five over the course of eight days this summer.

“This last weekend of Route 91 was her favorite weekend of the year,” he said, adding that they persuaded five friends to come along. The group scattered after the shooting started, and all but Kimura were reunited in the ensuing hours, said Ryan Miller, a pastor and one of Kimura’s friends who also attended the concert.

“She made you jealous of how much she loved life,” Miller wrote on a GoFundMe page.

 

Jessica Klymchuk.

Jessica Klymchuk, 34, Valleyview, Alberta, Canada

Jessica Klymchuk, a mother of four was an educational assistant at St. Stephen’s School in Valleyview, Alberta, Canada, a town of roughly 2,000 people.

Jessica was a librarian and a bus driver who was raising four children on her own. Then she found someone to love.

Klymchuk became engaged in April to her boyfriend, Brent Irla, according to a Facebook status update. “Since meeting Brent my world has changed, his smile is something I can’t live without,” Klymchuk wrote in a comment responding to the announcement.

The couple were together in Las Vegas when the hail of bullets rained down on the crowd. Klymchuk died Monday morning with Irla by her side, according to a family friend.

“She was loved by the kids,” the Rev. Abraham Joseph of St. Stephen’s School told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.

He said when staff and students heard the news Monday, the teachers were in tears and the children in shock.

 

Carly Kreibaum.

Carly Kreibaum, 33, Sutherland, Iowa

Carly Kreibaum lived in the small town of Sutherland, Iowa, with her husband and two children and worked at a Wal-Mart store.

“Carly is a wonderful woman. Well-loved by everyone and a fabulous mother,” said Sutherland City Clerk Natosha Petitt.

Her Facebook page shows a photo of Kreibaum at the Venetian hotel in Las Vegas on Sunday afternoon, smiling with two other women. Hours later, she was among the 58 people killed when a gunman opened fire on a country music festival in Las Vegas.

“For us to lose a young mother this way, it’s been pretty devastating for the community,” said Dan Wetherell, who is the town’s library director and a cook at Mugshots Bar and Grill, where Kreibaum and her husband, Chris, sometimes ate.

“There’s 600 people in this town. And there were 22,000 people at that concert,” Wetherell said.

 

Rhonda LeRocque.

Rhonda LeRocque, 42, Tewksbury, Mass.

Rhonda LeRocque of Tewksbury, Mass., was an active member of the Jehovah’s Witnesses and worked at a Cambridge design firm.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, she and her husband, Jason, helped rebuild homes in Louisiana.

“All I know is someone started shooting and people are running and she got shot in the head,” Carol Marquis, LeRocque’s grandmother, told the Boston Globe.

“She prayed on everything,” her mother Priscilla Champagne told the Boston Globe. “Very God-oriented.”

Her husband and her daughter were unharmed in the shooting, according to multiple media reports. LeRocque’s family struggled to understand what had happened.

“It makes no sense. Why would he do this?” LeRocque’s sister Jennifer Zeleneski told the Boston Herald. “My sister didn’t do anything. She never hurt people. She was the [kindest] person that I know.”

 

Victor LInk.

Victor Link, 55, Orange County, Calif.

Victor Link, a mortgage broker, was remembered by his son as a strong role model.

“I love you so much Dad,” Christian Link wrote on Facebook. “Thank you so much for adopting me. Thank you so much for being the best dad any one son could ever have.”

Link was attending the music festival with his fiancée, Lynne Gonzales, according to media reports.

Music was part of Victor Link’s life ever since he was a boy in rural Shafter, Calif. His parents were from Arkansas and Missouri, and regularly listened to Charley Pride, Ernest Tubb, Kitty Wells and Hank Williams.

Link’s older brother Craig, 58, a musician, said he was “just as solid as anybody you ever meet, and respectful. And he was madly in love with his fiancee and she was madly in love with him.”

 

Jordan McIldoon.

Jordan McIldoon, 23, Maple Ridge, British Columbia, Canada

When Jordan McIldoon’s parents confirmed their son’s death to the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., they summed up their pain and loss in 12 words.

“We had only one child,” Al and Angela said in a statement. “We just don’t know what to do.”

They described their son, a heavy-duty mechanic apprentice who was about to start a trade school, as a “self-described cowboy boot, tattoo-covered redneck who loved the outdoors.” He grew up on his family’s land in Maple Ridge, British Columbia. Photos of McIldoon on social media show him in cowboy boots and on snowmobiles and motorcycles, often smiling big with an arm around his girlfriend, Amber Bereza.

When McIldoon was among the hundreds struck by bullets at the concert, a bartender named Heather Gooze stepped in to help. “I felt his fingers, like tighten and then loosen,” Gooze told the CBC. When McIldoon’s phone rang in his pocket, she told the news agency, she answered and found out his name from the friend on the line. Gooze wrote McIldoon’s name on his arm, then searched for his family on Facebook.

She eventually reached Bereza, who was on lockdown nearby. “Please be honest with me,” Bereza asked. “What’s going on?” “I didn’t want to be the one to tell you this, but he didn’t make it,” Gooze said she told her.

McIldoon’s mother soon called and Gooze promised she would stay with McIldoon. She did for five hours.

 

Kelsey Meadows.

Kelsey Meadows, 28, Taft, Calif.

Meadows was a substitute teacher at Taft Union High School in Taft, California, where she graduated in 2007.

Taft Union High School principal Mary Alice Finn said she “was smart, compassionate and kind. She had a sweet spirit and a love for children.”

The high school established a memorial scholarship fund in her honor.

 

Calla Medig.

Calla-Marie Medig, 28, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

Growing up in the small Canadian town of Jasper, Alberta, Calla Medig loved her country music.

She loved it so much she put a job promotion on hold so she could attend the Route 91 Harvest Festival concert in Las Vegas with her roommate.

“She was promoted the day before she left for Vegas,” said Scott Collingwood, acting general manager at Moxie’s Grill and Bar in the West Edmonton Mall, where Medig worked.

He grew concerned Monday morning when he couldn’t reach Medig. No texts were answered. Facebook messages went unread.

“She’s left a huge hole in our hearts,” Collingwood said of Medig. “She was an absolute fantastic lady.”

 

James Melton, with with Heather.

James ‘Sonny’ Melton, 29, Big Sandy, Tenn.

When the bullets started raining down on the crowd, Melton’s first reaction was to protect his wife.

“He saved my life,” Heather Melton said. “He grabbed me from behind and started running when I felt him get shot in the back.”

Melton was a registered nurse at Henry County Medical Center in Paris, Tenn. His wife is an orthopedic surgeon there. The couple married in June 2016.

Heather Melton wrote to USA TODAY, “I want everyone to know what a kind hearted loving man he was but at this point I can barely breathe.”

 

Pati Mestas.

Pati Mestas, 67, Menifee, Calif.

Mestas was the oldest person to die, but family members always will remember her for being young at heart.

“Pati was a lover of music in general, but country music was what she loved most,” said Alexis Magana, a family friend.

Friends and family described the 67-year-old Corona resident as a dedicated Christian who had a beautiful smile and a bold personality.

“Pati was a firecracker. I never dreamed she’d be taken from us in an instant,” Magana said. “Our firecracker is gone and now it’s just dark,” Magana said.

Mestas is survived by her daughter, two sons and eight grandchildren.

First of Two Parts: Hannah Ahlers, Heather Alvarado, Dorene Anderson, Carrie Barnette, Jack Beaton, Steve Berger, Candice Bowers, Denise Burditus, Sandy Casey, Andrea Castilla, Denise Cohen, Austin Davis, Thomas Day, Christiana Duarte, Stacee Etcheber, Brian Fraser, Keri Galvan, Dana Gardner, Angela Gomez, Charleston Hartfield, Chris Hazencomb, Jennifer Topaz Irvine, Teresa Nicol Kimura, Jessica Klymchuk, Carly Kreibaum, Rhonda LeRocque, Victor Link, Jordan McIldoon, Kelsey Meadows, Calla-Marie Medig, James ‘Sonny’ Melton, Pati Mestas

Last of Two Parts: Sacrifice II: Ordinary but exceptional people died in the Las Vegas slaughter:

Austin Meyer, Adrian Murfitt, Rachael Parker, Jennifer Parks, Carrie Parsons, Lisa Patterson, John Phippen, Melissa Ramirez, Jordyn Rivera, Quinton Robbins, Cameron Robinson, Tara Roe, Lisa Romero-Muniz, Christopher Roybal, Brett Schwanbeck, Bailey Schweitzer, Laura Shipp, Erick Silva, Susan Smith, Brennan Stewart, Derrick ‘Bo’ Taylor, Neysa Tonks, Michelle Vo, Kurt von Tillow, Bill Wolfe Jr.