The gunman who murdered 19 children and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas, on Tuesday morning looked one of the teachers in the eye and said “Goodnight” before pulling the trigger, according to a new report.
It’s the latest chilling detail to emerge from the Robb Elementary School massacre, the worst school shooting in the U.S. in a decade. The blood-curdling quote comes from an account of the attack from schoolgirl Miah Cerillo, 11, who suffered bullet fragment injuries to her back and shoulders, but managed to survive the attack.
Miah was in a fourth-grade classroom with teachers Irma Garcia and Eva Mireles watching Lilo & Stitch as an end of school year treat when the gunman arrived at the door. Recounting what she’d been told by Miah in an interview, journalist Nora Neus says the shooter looked one of the teachers in the eye before blasting the window out of the door.
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“Miah says it just happened all so fast,” Neus said on CNN on Friday morning. “He backed the teacher into the classroom and he made eye contact with the teacher again, looked her right in the eye, and said ‘Goodnight,’ and then shot her and killed her.”
Miah says the killer then opened fire on the others in the room, shooting the other teacher and many of her friends. She then watched him enter an adjoining classroom, from which she heard screams and the sound of music playing. Neus says Miah characterized the music as ““I want people to die’ music.” Fearing the gunman would return, Miah reportedly smeared herself in one of her friends’ blood in order to play dead.
It’s the latest bit of appalling new information that has continued to emerge from others connected to the slaughter.
The coroner called to identify victims after the shootings revealed he was friends with one of the dead. Lalo Diaz, a Uvalde justice of the peace who also serves as county coroner, had gone to high school with teacher Irma Garcia. “The only reason I knew it was her... I saw pictures,” Diaz told KHOU. “It breaks my heart. I have broken down a little bit, and I’m probably going to break down in the future. It’s just one of those things where you’re not prepared for what you just saw.”
Tragically, Garcia’s husband, Joe, died Thursday, two days after her murder from what grief-stricken relatives called “a broken heart.”
Elsewhere, KENS 5 reports that a family member of the gunman confirmed that the shooter had a second cousin inside Robb Elementary at the time of the attack, but the cousin managed to escape unharmed.
One of those who didn’t survive the attack was 10-year-old Jayce Luevanos. His grandfather Carmelo Quiroz shared the devastating revelation that Jayce had begged that day to accompany his grandmother on a trip to the San Antonio Zoo, which she was attending with her great-granddaughter’s kindergarten class.
“That’s why my wife is hurting so much, because he wanted to go to San Antonio,” Quiroz told USA Today. “He was so sad he couldn’t go. Maybe if he would have gone, he’d be here.”
Read it at KHOU
