Loving and caring souls The Dayton victims
A mother of two studying to be a nurse, a grad student learning to care for cancer survivors — and the shooter’s own sister — were among the victims of the Dayton, Ohio, massacre.
Connor Betts, 24, killed nine people when he opened fire on a street lined with bars and restaurants at around 1 a.m., including his 22-year-old sister, Megan, his youngest victim, authorities said. It was unclear whether she was an intended target.
Megan Betts was an environmental-science student at Dayton’s Wright State University and set to graduate next year, her Facebook page shows.
Logan Turner, who previously attended the college, also was killed, authorities said.
The “sweet and smart” Turner had just celebrated his 30th birthday on Tuesday and was out with friends, his mom, Danita, told WHIO-TV.
“He was very generous and loving, and the world’s best son,” she said.
Another victim was nursing student Lois Oglesby, 27, who leaves a newborn and an older daughter, a childhood pal, Derasha Merrett, told the station.
“She was a wonderful mother, a wonderful person,” Merrett said. “I have cried so much I can’t cry anymore.”
Also slain was Nicholas Cumer, 25, a Pennsylvania grad student doing an internship at the Maple Tree Cancer Alliance treatment center in Dayton.
Cumer, in the Master of Cancer Care program at Saint Francis University in Loretto, “loved his patients and served them well, with a loving and caring spirit,” the alliance said.
Victim Thomas McNichols, 25, was a father of four — two girls and two boys, ages 2 to 8. He was remembered by his aunt as a “gentle giant.”
The aunt, Donna Johnson, said that she and McNichols, a factory worker, snacked on Twizzlers together after he left work Saturday and that he was out with a cousin when he was slain.
“Everybody loved him. He was like a big kid,” she told WHIO. “When all of the movies come out — ‘Batman,’ ‘Black Panther’ — he would get all his nephews and take them to the movies.”
Derrick Fudge, 57, was out with his son Dion Green, his son’s fiancée and several others when he was killed.
“They were all just down there enjoying themselves and had stepped out of, I think, one of the clubs and were in a line to get some food,” said Fudge’s sister, Twyla Southall. “His son is very distraught.”
Friends Beatrice Warren-Curtis, 36, who went by Nicole Curtis, and Monica Brickhouse, 39, were out together when they were killed, another pal, Brittany Hart, said on Facebook.
Also killed in the shooting was 38-year-old Saeed Saleh.