Three of them were shot while working in a Colorado grocery store for a day. Another was a police officer who rushed in to save them and others from the attack that killed 10.
A photo of the victims of Monday’s shooting began to appear a day later, when the suspect was involved in the murders was put in prison on a charge of murder after being treated in a hospital.
Those who lost their lives at the King Soopers store in Boulder ranged from 20 years old to 65 years old. They included a magazine photographer, a Medicare agent with a passion for theater, and others who spent their days in a busy shopping plaza.
They were identified as Denny Stong, 20; Cousins Stanisic, 23; Rikki Olds, 25; Tralona Bartkowiak, 49; police officer Eric Talley, 51; Suzanne Fountain, 59; Teri Leiker, 51; Kevin Mahoney, 61; Lynn Murray, 62; and Jodi Waters, 65.
Leiker, Olds and Stong worked in the grocery store, said former employee Jordan Sailas, who never got the chance to take his son to the store to meet them.
ERIC TALLEY
He joined the police force in Boulder in 2010 with a background that included a master’s degree in computer communications, his father said.
“At the age of 40, he decided he wanted to serve his community,” Homer “Shay” Talley, 74, told The Associated Press from his ranch in central Texas. He left his office job. He just wanted to serve, and that’s what he did. He just enjoyed the police family. “
Eric Talley was the first to arrive after a phone call about shots fired and someone with a rifle, Boulder police chief Maris Herold said.
Talley was “one of the outstanding officers in every way” in the department, said Boulder County district attorney Michael Dougherty.
Talley’s father said his son – who had seven children, ages 7 to 20 – was a devoted father who “knew the Lord.”
“When everyone left in the parking lot, he ran to it,” Shay Talley said.
“We know where he is,” he added. He loved his family more. He was not afraid of dying. He was afraid to get them through. “
Talley graduated from high school in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1988. The school superintendent there expressed his condolences, praising “the example that Officer Talley is abandoning us all.”
LYNN MURRAY
Murray was shopping at King Soopers, where a friend’s daughter had seen her. Word reached her husband, John Mackenzie, who drove to the store and started texting his wife.
After I got no answer in about five minutes, “I just fell over in my chair,” he said, choking.
Murray had a long career shooting for magazines like Cosmopolitan and Vogue, Mackenzie said.
“She charmed the pants of me” when they met years ago in a photography studio in New York City, he said. Computer backgammon games soon evolved into a relationship and eventually two kids.
“She’s without a doubt the nicest person I’ve ever known. She had a look that was the coolest thing you could ever want to know. She was just a cool girl, ”Mackenzie said. “She had it all together – really.”
He said he spent hours comforting their kids before “losing” it Tuesday morning. Mackenzie offered a message:
Don’t live in fear. My wife, none of the victims would ever want you to live in fear. They want you to be bolder and live a bolder life. That’s what this place is about. “
SUZANNE FOUNTAIN
Fountain was an actress and mother who later won loyal clients as a Medicare agent and did extensive research to find the right supplemental coverage for older adults enrolling in the federal health insurance program, her life partner Phi Bernier said.
“She never skimped, she never did anything because it was easier,” he said.
Fountain trained at the Circle in the Square Theater School and the two first met when they starred in “The Glass Menagerie” about 30 years ago, Bernier said. They dated for a while, then reconnected after Fountain came to see him in a play in 2013.
Until the pandemic, Fountain was also the manager of eTown, a non-profit live music venue in Boulder.
“Suzanne was a bright light to everyone she met, and we were proud to represent eTown in our community as she welcomed people to our space hundreds and hundreds of times,” the organization said in a Facebook post.
Fountain received praise for her acting from critics as well as those who worked with her.
“She was absolutely lovely, a natural person, someone you just haven’t forgotten,” Brian Miller, who worked with her on a show, told The Denver Post.
A Boulder Daily Camera review said her 2002 performance as a nurse in White, a Pulitzer Prize-winning play about a woman dealing with cancer, “brought a simple but crucial compassion to the play.”
RIKKI OLDS
Olds, front-end manager at King Soopers, strived to work her way up the store, her family said.
“She was 25 years old, like a starting life, vibrant and energetic and charismatic,” said her uncle Robert Olds.
He said he still remembers the preschool-age niece who would go to baseball tournaments with him and his sons and then ask to go to McDonald’s.
“We’re devastated,” said Robert Olds. He added that the family had heard from one of her friends that she had tried to lock the shop doors after the parking lot shooting started.
Her grandmother was shocked when she described the young woman she played a huge role in raising.
“She was just a very nice and loving, bubbly person who lit up the room when she entered,” said Jeanette Olds, 71, of Lafayette, Colorado.
KEVIN MAHONEY
He “represents all things Love,” his daughter Erika Mahoney said in one poignant tweet which featured a wedding photo and drew a lot of attention on social media.
“I’m so grateful he was able to walk me down the aisle last summer,” added Mahoney, who is the news director at a California public radio station.
She also posted that she is pregnant and knows that her father ‘wants me to be strong for his granddaughter’.
TERI LEIKER
The longtime King Soopers employee loved seeing the University of Colorado marching band perform at a kickoff celebration called the Pearl Street Stampede on Friday night before home football games on the Boulder campus, band director Matt Dockendorf told The Denver Post.
“She was there before we started collecting, which is half an hour before the stampede started,” said Dockendorf. ‘She was just a staple. She was kind of a personal cheerleader for the band. ”
Associated Press writers Patty Nieberg in Boulder, Colorado, and Susan Montoya Bryan in Albuquerque, New Mexico, contributed. Nieberg is a corps member of the Associated Press / Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a national nonprofit service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on hidden issues.