The everyday normalcy of a trip to the grocery store was shattered two years ago in Boulder, Colo., when a gunman opened fire and killed 10 people.
It was the second mass shooting in a public place in the United States in a six day span, followingthe attacksat three separate Asian spas in the Atlanta-area, during which eight people were killed.
The suspect, 21-year-oldAhmad Alissaof Arvada, Colo., has been ruled incompetent to stand trial, and his lawyers have said he has schizophrenia,the Associated Press reports.
Here are the victims of the Boulder mass shooting:
Officer Eric Talley, 51
Eric Talley.Boulder Police Dept
Officer Eric Talley was the first to respond to the deadly grocery store shooting. He had seven children, who were ages 7 to 20 when he died.
“He’s a better father than I was,” his father Homer Talley told PEOPLE. “He loved his children more than anything else. He was very involved with his kids. He showed them love.”
Talley, 51, left his IT job and became a police officer when he was 40.
He made local headlines in 2013 when he rescued several ducks from a drainage pipe.
“Thank you for being my hero that night & thank you for being a hero to everyone in King Soopers today,” she wrote.
Kevin Mahoney, 61
Kevin Mahoney.Courtesy Ellen Mahoney
Boulder resident Kevin Mahoney, 61, was also killed during the shooting. Mahoney was retired and was an avid hiker who loved camping and the Chicago Cubs.
In the summer of 2020, Kevin walked his daughter, Erika, down the aisle at her wedding. “My dad represents all things Love,” wrote Erika Mahoney in a touching tribute she posted to Twitter.
Before his murder, Kevin learned his daughter was pregnant with a girl of her own.
“I know he wants me to be strong for his granddaughter,” Erika, the news director for a California radio station, wrote in her tribute.
Rikki Olds, 25
Rikki Olds.Facebook
On Facebook, Olds' aunt Lori Olds called the 25-year-old a “beautiful young angel.”
“Thank you everyone for all your prayers but the Lord got a beautiful young angel yesterday at the hands of a deranged monster,” Lori wrote.
After the shooting, Lori shared a photo of Olds with the caption: “Why you why not me? You haven’t even lived yet….”
Tralona ‘Lonna’ Bartkowiak, 49
Lonna Bartkowiak.Facebook
“I don’t even know what to say,” friendEdica Pachawrote on Facebook after the shooting. “[Lonna] was the kindest and sweetest lady you ever did know. All she wanted to do was help and share beauty with others. I am heartbroken for her family. Love you Lonna.. you were such a light.”
Bartkowiak was the eldest of four siblings, according toThe New York Times.She lived in Boulder with her pet Chihuahua, Opal, and had recently gotten engaged.
“She was just great,” her brother, Michael Bartkowiak, told the newspaper. “No, she is great. Still is.”
Jody Waters, 65
Jody Waters.Embrazio/Facebook
After the massacre, the owners of Embrazio, a leather accessories company in Boulder, posted a photo of Jody Waters to thecompany’s Facebook page.
Denny Stong, 20
Denny Stong.Facebook
Denny Stong, 20, of Boulder, loved motorcycles and had a dream of becoming a pilot. To earn money for his flight school lessons, he took a job at King Soopers, where he was a “cashier, a shelf stocker and jack-of-all-trades,” Laura Spicer, whose son Ben was best friends with Stong, told PEOPLE.
“Denny was a gregarious kid,” said Spicer. “Always had something to do and somewhere to go. He really grew up when he decided that he really wanted to become a pilot.”
Stong also enjoyed flying and building model airplanes, and was getting ready for a big Civil War reenactment,The Denver Postreported.
Stong had a girlfriend and felt optimistic about his future, Spicer told PEOPLE. “Back in like November, I asked him how things were going,” she recalled. “He made a gesture with his hand like a plane getting off the tarmac, and going up in the air. And he said, ‘I’m flying.’ And he meant like in life.”
Neven Stanisic, 23
Neven Stanisic.Facebook
Neven Stanisic, 23, was the second-youngest victim of the shooting.
“He was a wonderful young boy,” Rev. Radovan Petrovic, 40, of St. John the Baptist Serbian Orthodox Church in Lakewood, Colo., told PEOPLE.
Petrovic had known Stanisic since he was 6 years old.
Stanisic’s family arrived in the U.S. in the 1990s as Serbian refugees from Bosnia.
“They came here as refugees in the late ’90s to start a new life and to save their lives. And to have this happen to them, it really is heartbreaking,” Petrovic said.
“He was a quiet and a kind person,” Petrovic added. “He was really innocent, like all other 9 victims. He has done nothing wrong to anyone, he didn’t deserve this.”
Teri Leiker, 51
Teri Leiker.Twitter
Teri Leiker had been an employee at the King Soopers supermarket for more than 30 years, according to a friend who said that working was Leiker’s “favorite thing to do.”
“Teri was the most selfless, innocent, amazing person I have had the honor of meeting,” Lexi Knutson said in anInstagram tributefor her friend, whom she met at a CU Boulder Best Buddies meeting.
Leiker, 51, was a big fan of the University of Colorado’s marching band and a regular at the Pearl Street pep rallies.
“She was so energetic and always cheering and singing along with the band whenever we were doing anything,” Matthew Dockendorf, 37, Director of the University of Colorado Marching Band, told PEOPLE. “She was like a super fan.”
Leiker was always decked out in University of Colorado gear and happy to chat with members of the band.
“It was just so great to see them every week,” Dockendorf said. “She was just a really kind soul.”
“Teri leaves behind her family, her boyfriend Clint, and many close friends that truly cared about her,” Knutson added in her Instagram post.
Suzanne Fountain, 59
Suzanne Fountain.
Colorado-based actress Suzanne Fountain was also killed in the shooting.
Fountain worked as the house manager at the Boulder music venue eTown Hall.
The venue shared atribute to Fountain on Facebookafter the shooting, calling her “a bright light to all she met.”
Lynn Murray, 62
Lynn Murray.Go Fund Me
Retired photo editor Lynn Murray, who had been inside King Soopers working as an Instacart shopper at the time of the shooting, was killed in the shooting.
Murray’s daughter Olivia Mackenzietold theDenver Postthat her mom “was the biggest light in everybody’s life. She would do anything for anybody. You can’t say anything bad about her.”
John Mackenzietold theNew York Timesthat he wants his wife to be remembered “as just as this amazing, amazing comet spending 62 years flying across the sky.”
Murray and John moved to Colorado from New York in 2002 to raise Olivia, 24, and her brother Pierce, 22, according to the outlet.
“The most undeserving person to have to be shot down I can think of has to be my mother,” Olivia told theTimes, adding, “and I just wish it could have been me.”
source: people.com
