Colo. victims mourned at funerals in 3 states

AMANDA LEE MYERS

Asso­ci­ated Press

SPRINGFIELD — A man who saved his girlfriend’s life at the Col­orado movie shoot­ing was remem­bered for his self­less sac­ri­fice Sat­ur­day, while an aspir­ing sports­caster was praised for her bound­less energy and an Air Force reservist as a good friend.

The girl­friend who Matt McQuinn saved by tak­ing three bul­lets aimed at her wept as pas­tors spoke of the sense­less­ness of the shoot­ing spree at the sub­ur­ban Den­ver the­ater where 12 peo­ple were killed just more than a week ago.

Mourn­ers packed a church in this west­ern Ohio town where McQuinn came from, while fam­ily and friends gath­ered in San Anto­nio on the same day to remem­ber Jes­sica Ghawi and a pri­vate funeral ser­vice was held at Buck­ley Air Force Base in Aurora, Colo., for Staff Sgt. Jesse Childress.

More funer­als are set for next week.

When gun­fire broke out in the Aurora the­ater, McQuinn, 27, dove in front of his girl­friend, Saman­tha Yowler, and was shot three times.

Yowler, who was shot in the knee and sur­vived, arrived at McQuinn’s funeral on crutches Sat­ur­day and wept qui­etly with his par­ents and other fam­ily dur­ing the funeral. Nei­ther she nor his par­ents addressed mourn­ers at the Maiden Lane Church of God.

Pas­tor Herb Shaf­fer, who is also McQuinn’s uncle, said his nephew had been a gift to his fam­ily since he was born, and that his actions in Col­orado were just one exam­ple of his selflessness.

McQuinn called his mother three times the day before she had surgery because he was upset that he couldn’t be there in per­son, Shaf­fer said. When he was just 7, he put his arm around his younger cousin because he was wor­ried she wasn’t hav­ing a good day, he said.

Then he talked about McQuinn’s great­est sac­ri­fice of all, sav­ing Yowler, whom Shaf­fer described as the love of his nephew’s life.

“In moments of cri­sis, true char­ac­ter comes out,” he said. “His imme­di­ate response was to pro­tect the woman he loved.”

“Matt’s death is a sud­den loss, one that has pro­duced many ques­tions in your minds,” Pas­tor Dan Fior­ini said. “I know you’re ask­ing in your heart of hearts, why? Why was Matt there? Why was a gun­man allowed to enter that the­ater? Why was he able to pur­chase guns and ammu­ni­tion so eas­ily? Why didn’t God do something?”

Fior­ini said he couldn’t answer any of those questions.

“We can wres­tle with the whys of this tragedy for eter­nity and never come up with an answer,” he said.

Shaf­fer told mourn­ers that the shoot­ing for­ever changed them.

“Our lives will never be the same,” he said. “The words Aurora, Cin­ema 16 shoot­ing, Bat­man, will never mean the same thing, and we’ll be reminded of Matt every time we hear them.”

Mourn­ers at Ghawi’s funeral also touched briefly on the massacre.

“If this cow­ard could have done this with this much hate, imag­ine what we can do with this much love,” her brother, Jor­dan Ghawi, said at the Com­mu­nity Bible Church in San Antonio.

But most of the ser­vice focused on the life and energy of the aspir­ing 24-year-old sports journalist.

“What we will not do today is focus on how she left us,” said Peter Burns, a friend from Col­orado, read­ing a state­ment from Ghawi’s mother, Sandy. “Jess was a force to be reck­oned with. She was a jolt of light­ning. A whirl­wind. A Labrador puppy run­ning clum­sily with inno­cent joy.”

Burns talked of the funny way Ghawi sneezed, her near-addiction to Nutella choco­late, how she was sloppy and always lovable.

Ghawi’s boyfriend, Jay Meloff, note that oth­ers described her as “a tough, red­headed spit­fire,” and she was, but that he also saw “a beau­ti­ful, warm-hearted and pas­sion­ate woman with a capac­ity for love. … She was as mushy as they come.”

He said they were look­ing for­ward to build­ing a future together and he also encour­aged oth­ers to do as she did and “live each day fully.”

“She drank in life,” he said.

Ghawi was a pretty, blue-eyed red­head who moved to Col­orado about a year ago. She had sur­vived a June 2 shoot­ing at a Toronto mall that left two dead and sev­eral wounded. She blogged about the expe­ri­ence, writ­ing that it reminded her “how frag­ile life was.”

“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,” Ghawi wrote.

Fol­low­ing the funeral for Chil­dress, 29, about 200 peo­ple attended a pri­vate bur­ial ser­vice at Fort Logan National Ceme­tery south­west of Den­ver, Vet­er­ans Affairs spokesman Paul Sherbo said.

Friends and col­leagues have described the Air Force cyber-systems oper­a­tor as a good friend, expe­ri­enced and knowl­edge­able. Chil­dress was from Thorn­ton, Colo., and worked at Buck­ley Air Force Base.

James Holmes, a 24-year-old for­mer doc­toral stu­dent study­ing neu­ro­science, is accused of open­ing fire on the the­ater, killing McQuinn, Ghawi, Chil­dress and nine oth­ers, and wound­ing 58. He is due to be for­mally charged Mon­day in Colorado.

Posted by AP News on Jul 29 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.