A pastor’s daughter, a pregnant mother and a boy of five were among the victims of the largest mass shooting in Texas state history, it emerged today.
Crystal Holcombe, who was eight months pregnant, was one the first names to emerge.
Daughters Emily and Megan had finished third and first in their respective categories in a 4-H bakeoff and displayed their handiwork in posted photos.
But on Sunday afternoon, her Facebook page went grim.
“Keep the Holcombe family in your prayers,” a friend posted.
Crystal Holcombe was among the 26 killed by a lone gunman wielding an assault rifle, most as they worshipped at the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs, Texas, said her cousin, Nick Uhlig.
Uhlig told The Associated Press that Holcombe’s in-laws were killed, and he told the Houston Chronicle that three of Holcombe’s children also died.
“She doesn’t even drink, smoke or nothing,” he told the newspaper.
“She just takes care of kids; she raises goats and makes homemade cheese. That kind of thing, you know? They don’t go out dancing or anything like that. They’re real old-fashioned, down-to-earth.”
The father-in-law, Bryan Holcombe, had done prison ministry, said Uhlig. “He would go up to the prison with ukulele to sing.”
The massacred churchgoers ranged in age from 5 to 72, state police said, without immediately offering more detail. About 20 others were wounded.
Family ‘loses eight members’
One local man, 68-year-old Earl Good, told the San Antonio Express-News that a good friend had lost eight relatives in the shooting.
It’s not clear whether the Holcombes were that family.
Another family that lost multiple members were the Ward family. Michael Ward that many of his family members were in attendance at the church when the tragedy took place.
Five-year-old Rylan Ward killed
Ward said his young niece Emily was fatally shot. Emily’s five year-old brother Rylan was shot four times and her sister Brooke was injured as well. The siblings’ mother, Joanna, was also shot.
Nick Wagner, a photographer with the Austin American-Statesman who was on the scene shortly after the attack, reported that the father of Rebecca Metcalf was killed in the shooting.
Pastor’s daughter, 14, among victims
Another victim was 14-year-old Annabelle Pomeroy, daughter of the church’s pastor, Frank Pomeroy. Both he and his wife were out of town, in different states, on Sunday.
“Heaven truly gained a real beautiful angel this morning along with many more,” the girl’s uncle, Scott Pomeroy, lamented on his Facebook page, posting a picture of the smiling girl poolside in a bathing suit.
All those robbed of life in Sunday’s bloodbath, he wrote, “have taken their last breath of dirty air and took their first breath of heavenly air with new bodies with no pain and suffering.”
Another of those killed was the 13-year-old goddaughter of Amanda Mosel, she told the Express-News.
Hank Summers, a local who had moved to San Antonio, told the AP via text message that his uncle, David Colbath, survived five gunshots that required extensive surgery and skin grafts to save an arm.
Sutherland Springs is a tiny town where everyone knows each other, said L.G. Moore, who runs the Holiday RV Park, which is ¼mile from the church.
Everyone in town was apt to know someone who was killed, he ventured.
“They say the population is 400 and that’s if you count every dog, cat and armadillo. It’s more like 200 people,” the 75-year-old Moore said by phone.
“We are dealing with the largest mass shooting in our state’s history,” Texas Governor Greg Abbott said. “The tragedy of course is worsened by the fact that it occurred in a church, a place of worship.”
Source: Yahoo News
