article courtesy of The Morning Sun
A married couple originally from Harrison in Clare County was among the 26 victims of a mass killing at a Texas church on Sunday, the community is learning.
Shani Brauher Corrigan and Robert Corrigan were both killed in the shooting at a small church on Sutherland Springs, Texas, Clare sheriff’s officials said in a notice to the community.
The two graduated from Harrison High School in 1985 according to year book records; Robert Corrigan’s Facebook pages indicates the couple was wed the same year.
An administrator in the district for 31 years, Superintendent Rick Foote said that while his time there did not overlap the Corrigans’ years, he still felt sadness for the community.
“It’s a sad loss for Harrison, for family and friends,” Foote said. “It seems unbelievable that tragic suffering so far away could reach us here locally.”
As news spread of the couple’s death, Foote said many who had taught the two are now retired from the district; Robert Corrigan however left his mark for decades, holding the track record for the two-mile run for the 25 years between 1985 and 2010 when it was finally broken.
A vigil for the Corrigans is planned for 5:30 p.m. Monday at Veterans Freedom Park in Harrison, said Renee Haley, director of Veterans Services for Clare County.
“I was recently notified that Harrison has lost two of their own in the horrible tragedy that occurred yesterday in Texas,” Haley said. “Robert and Shani Corrigan were both Harrison High School graduates.”
The Corrigans are survived, among others, by two sons, both now on active duty with the military, Haley said.
“Please pass the word and whether or not you knew them, let’s show this family that they will not be forgotten,” she said. “Funeral services to be announced later in the week.”
Memories of Robert and Shani Corrigan were flooding Facebook Monday from friends and fellow veterans.
“He was my first supervisor when I joined the Air Force,” said Colin Palmer. “He always took really good care of me and treated me well. Bob was a lot of things to a lot of people. I could probably fill a book with Bob-isms, capers, shenanigans, and general unruliness.”
From Sherri McGinnis:
“I worked with Bob at WellMed. He was without a doubt one of the kindest, gentlest souls I ever met. Such an amazing human being. This is tragic for his family and for so many.”
And again from Palmer:
“I found out a little while ago that Shani was with Bob and was killed as well. Like Bob, she was a great lady. On too many occasions to count, she sent Bob with an extra plate of dinner to work just because she didn’t want me to eat chow hall food all the time.”
Funeral arrangements and obituary information for the Corrigans is pending.
When the gunman opened fire in a small Texas church, congregants were helpless to get away from the attacker, who killed 26 people in a massacre that claimed multiple members of some families and tore apart a close-knit town of 400 people.
Once the shooting started Sunday at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, there was probably “no way” for congregants to escape, Wilson County Sheriff Joe D. Tackitt Jr. said.
The gunman, dressed in black tactical gear, fired an assault rifle as he walked down the center aisle during worship services. He turned around and continued shooting on his way out of the building, Tackitt said.
The gunman also carried a handgun, but authorities he did not know if it was fired. Tackitt described the scene as “terrible.”
“It’s unbelievable to see children, men and women, laying there. Defenseless people,” he said.
The dead ranged in age from 5 to 72 years old. About 20 other people were wounded.
The gunman’s former in-laws attended services at the church “from time to time” but were not there Sunday, Tackitt told CNN on Monday.
The suspect was identified as Devin Patrick Kelley, 26. Authorities said he lived in New Braunfels, about 35 miles north of the Sutherland Springs church.
A U.S. official told The Associated Press that Kelley did not appear to be linked to organized terrorist groups. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because the person wasn’t authorized to discuss the investigation.
Investigators were looking at social media posts Kelley made in the days before the attack, including one that appeared to show an AR-15 semi-automatic weapon.
Kelley received a bad conduct discharge from the Air Force for assaulting his spouse and child and was sentenced to 12 months of confinement after a 2012 court-martial. Kelley served in Logistics Readiness at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico from 2010 until his 2014 discharge, Air Force spokeswoman Ann Stefanek said.
The attacker pulled into a gas station across from the church, about 30 miles (48.28 kilometers) southeast of San Antonio, around 11:20 a.m. Sunday. He crossed the street and started firing the rifle at the church, then continued firing after entering the white wood-frame building, said Freeman Martin, a regional director of the Texas Department of Safety.
As he left, the shooter was confronted by an armed resident who “grabbed his rifle and engaged that suspect,” Martin said. A short time later, the suspect was found dead in his vehicle at the county line. Authorities believe he shot himself following a car wreck.
Twenty-three of the dead were found in the church, two were found outside and one died after being taken to a hospital, Martin said.
Among those killed was the church pastor’s 14-year-old daughter, Annabelle Pomeroy. Pastor Frank Pomeroy and his wife, Sherri, were both out of town when the attack occurred, Sherri Pomeroy wrote in a text message.
“We lost our 14-year-old daughter today and many friends,” she wrote. “Neither of us has made it back into town yet to personally see the devastation.”
President Donald Trump, who was in Japan, called the shooting an “act of evil,” later calling the gunman “a very deranged individual.”
On Sunday evening, two sheriff’s vans were parked outside the gate of a cattle fence surrounding the address listed for Kelley on the rural outskirts of New Braunfels, north of San Antonio.
Ryan Albers, 16, who lives across the road, said he heard intensifying gunfire coming from that direction in recent days.
“It was definitely not just a shotgun or someone hunting,” Albers said.
The church has posted videos of its Sunday services on a YouTube channel, raising the possibility that the shooting was captured on video.
Gov. Greg Abbott called Sunday’s attack the worst mass shooting in Texas history. It came on the eighth anniversary of a shooting at Fort Hood, where 13 people were killed and 31 others wounded by a former Army major.
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Associated Press writers Sadie Gurman and Eric Tucker in Washington, Nomaan Merchant in Houston, Will Weissert in Austin, Diana Heidgerd in Dallas, Michael Balsamo in Los Angeles and Paul J. Weber in New Braunfels, Texas, contributed to this report.
