3 generations in one family among victims
THE MANIAC who unleashed a bloodbath at a small-town Texas church killed his own wife’s grandmother, the 14-year-old daughter of the pastor and three generations of a single family.
Lula White, 71, was among the 26 shot dead during Sunday services at First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, a relative confirmed to the Daily News on Monday.
White was the grandmother of Danielle Kelley — the second wife of gunman Devin Kelley, 26.
“My sister was a wonderful, caring person — a God-loving person. She loved the people in her church. They were all her best friends,” Mary Clyburn, 74, told The News, breaking down in tears.
“I miss her badly already. We texted every day. We loved each other to the moon and back.”
According to police, Kelley was involved in a “domestic situation” and had been sending “threatening texts” to his mother-in-law, who was not in the church during the massacre.
The victims ranged in age from 18 months to 77 years. About half were kids, Wilson County Sheriff Joe Tackitt said. Authorities said 20 people were wounded.
Clyburn declined to delve into Kelley’s relationship with his mother-in-law or wife.
“The whole family is very devastated. This is not something we ever expected,” Clyburn said.
The Holcombes were also coping with unimaginable loss — eight members of their family were killed, according to a GoFundMe fund-raiser.
Associate Pastor Bryan Holcombe, who stepped to the pulpit of the church when Kelley began firing, was among the first to die.
“This is one of the most truly loving and kindhearted families in our nation,” a friend of the Holcombes, Cristopher Foster, wrote.
The pastor’s wife, Karla Holcombe; their son, Marc Holcombe, 36; and his 1-year-old daughter, Noah, also died.
Another one of the pastor’s sons — John Holcombe — survived. But John’s wife, Crystal Holcombe, who was eight months pregnant, did not.
Three of John and Crystal’s children, Emily, Megan and Greg, also were killed.
“She doesn’t even drink, smoke or nothing,” said Nick Uhlig, Crystal’s cousin. “She just takes care of kids; she raises goats and makes homemade cheese. . . They’re real old-fashioned, down-to-earth.”
The pastor’s dad, Joe Holcombe, told The Washington Post, “It’s of course going to be difficult. We are Christians, we have read the book. We know the ending, and it’s good. They’re in heaven. And they’re a lot better off than we are.”
Dr. Brian Eastridge, a military surgeon at the University Health System in San Antonio, said the victims’ wounds were akin to what he’d seen in war zones.
Other victims included 14-yearold Annabelle Pomeroy, the daughter of church pastor Frank Pomeroy, who was in Oklahoma at the time of the shooting. Sherri Pomeroy said she took a little bit of comfort that her daughter died with “the church family that she loved fiercely and vice versa.”
Sandy Ward told MSNBC that her daughter-in-law Joann, 30, and grandchildren, Brooke, 5, and Emily Garza, 7, were killed.
Joann’s 5-year-old son, Ryland Ward, was shot five times and was in critical condition at San Antonio’s University Hospital.
His aunt Leslie Ward told The News she rushed to the scene from her home after hearing the gunshots. “I found my nephew in the front, in pain,” she recalled.
“It was bad. There was just dead bodies everywhere. It wasn’t what I wanted to see but . . . I was worried about finding my family.”