Stacee Etcheber: Novato soccer mom killed in attack was known as a fiery, vivacious “Good Samaritan.”
The last time Vinnie Etcheber saw his wife, he told her to run.
As bullets rained down on the 22,000 people attending the Route 91 Harvest festival in Las Vegas, Stacee Rodrigues Etcheber disappeared into the panicked crowd and her husband, a San Francisco police officer, rushed to save those who’d been shot.
Vinnie Etcheber doesn’t know when his wife died or where. After a 24-hour search, he finally found her in the Clark County morgue.
On Tuesday, family members remembered Stacee Etcheber, who was among the 59 people killed in the deadliest mass shooting in the country’s modern history, a bloodbath that also left more than 520 injured.
She was tough, her family said, someone who knew how to pull horse trailers with a truck, a real cowgirl as well as a devoted soccer mom. She was a hairstylist who took care of her husband’s aging parents and someone the grocery store clerk remembered as funny and kind, even after seeing her just a few times.
Stacee Etcheber was, her family said, fiery, vivacious and tough as nails.
They believe the 50-year-old mother of two died helping victims at the Las Vegas concert Sunday night, unwilling to run when someone needed help, just like her husband of 13 years.
“We’re angry, devastated, frustrated,” said her brotherin-law, Al Etcheber, at a Tuesday news conference in Novato where the family lives. “To think that the devastating part is that it’s the largest mass shooting in history and to think our family is a part of it . ... You just never think it’s going to happen to you.”
San Francisco Police Chief William Scott said the department is grieving her death.
“With heavy hearts, the San Francisco Police Department today mourns the passing of Stacee Etcheber,” Scott said in a statement Tuesday. “Stacee was taken in a senseless act of violence as her husband, SFPD Officer Vinnie Etcheber, heroically rushed to aid shooting victims in Las Vegas on Sunday.”
When the gunfire broke out Sunday night, Officer Etcheber didn’t run, but immediately went into a public safety mindset and helped those who were shot near him, his brother said.
He told his wife to run. The couple became separated as the throngs of revelers at the country music festival ran for the exits or dived for cover.
The family still doesn’t know if she died at the scene or was first transported to a hospital, Al Etcheber said.
“We really don’t have any details of what happened,” he said.
What he did know is that his brother would have put his life on the line to help people.
“I’m sure my brother didn’t hesitate for a minute once he saw that gunshot victim,” Al Etcheber said. “He put himself in harm’s way. That’s just the way my brother is.”
Officer Etcheber helped get victims to the hospital and when he returned, the entire concert area was cordoned off and he was unable to find his wife, who didn’t have identification or her cell phone with her.
“From that point on, it was an excruciating 24 hours of not knowing where she was,” Al Etcheber said, adding his brother is devastated.
“Does he have some guilt right now? Is he questioning himself ? Probably,” he added. “I know he did the right thing. I want him to know that.”
On Monday, Al Etcheber and a few of his brother’s colleagues from the San Francisco Police Department went to Las Vegas to help search hospitals for the missing hairstylist, hoping she survived the barrage of bullets fired on the crowd from the 32nd floor of the nearby Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino.
Stacee Etcheber leaves behind a 10-year-old daughter and 13-year-old son.
Her career as a hairstylist spanned more than 20 years. She worked at Ciao Bella hair salon in Novato and previously at Andre Salon in Mill Valley.
Bob Sewall, an accountant whose office is directly below the Ciao Bella salon, said he only knew Etcheber in passing, but one encounter is etched in his mind.
He was riding his bicycle on Indian Valley Road last November when he came across an elderly woman lying on the road bleeding. She had tripped and fallen outside her house while getting her mail. Sewall ran inside her house and retrieved a face cloth from the injured woman’s disabled husband. When he came back, Etcheber was there attending to the woman.
“She had been driving by and was just being a Good Samaritan,” Sewall said. “It just shows she had compassion.”
The two of them waited with the woman until paramedics arrived.
“It’s shocking that something happens so far away and yet it’s so close to home,” Sewall said of Etcheber’s death, shaking his head.
On Tuesday morning, her family said the tragedy still felt surreal.
“We want to be able to carry on her legacy through her children,” Al Etcheber said, “and make sure she’s not forgotten.”