Two pairs of cousins were among the children who were brutally shot and killed during a mass shooting at an elementary school in Texas, local news reports confirmed.
Family members of third grader Annabelle Guadalupe Rodriguez, 10, confirmed the death of their daughter, hours after they’d issued an appeal to report her missing.
Annabelle, her family confirmed to Houston’s KHOU, was in the same fourth grade classroom as her cousin, Jackie Cazares, 10, on Tuesday when a teenage gunman barricaded dozens of students and two teachers inside the Uvalde elementary school before opening fire on the unprotected group.
Polly Flores, the aunt of Jackie and Annabelle’s great-aunt, told The New York Times that Jackie had just recently celebrated her first communion and was the more social of the pair of 10-year-olds.
“She was outgoing; she always had to be the center of attention,” Ms Flores said told The Times. “She was my little diva.” Annabelle, she countered, was the more reserved of the pair and an honour roll student. The two girls were so close they reportedly made Annabelle’s own twin sister “always jealous”.
In a gut-wrenching Facebook post, Jackie’s father shared a picture of his daughter in what appears to be a recent picture from her communion, held only two weeks before her untimely death.
“There is a select few, that won’t be kissing or hugging our babies tonight. My baby girl has been taken away from my family and I,” begins Jacinto Cazares. “We’re devastated in ways, I hope no one ever goes thru. Taken out of arms and lives, in this freaking cowardly way, so young, so innocent, full of life and love. It hurts us to our souls.”
“May your passing not be in vein, something will be done, I promised you. Be in piece with the rest of the angels, sweetheart,” Mr Cazares closed, before signing off, “Daddy, Mom,Sister, Brother and the whole family are going to miss you forever”.
Annabelle’s parents reported her missing and had been frantically searching for her late into Tuesday night, with her father recruiting the expertise of local law enforcement by providing a photo to the Texas Rangers hoping at the time that circulating the picture of his daughter would perhaps help bring her home safely.
A second set of cousins were also killed during Tuesday’s tragedy, local news reports confirmed.
Jailah Silguero, also aged 10, was the youngest of four children and “the baby” of the family, her father Jacob Silguero told The New York Times. “I can’t believe this happened to my daughter,” he said. “It’s always been a fear of mine to lose a kid.”
Jailah’s cousin, Jayce Carmelo Luevanos, 10, died in the same classroom, family members confirmed in Facebook posts commemorating the pair and also reported by WSB-TV.
Parents with children who attended the school were still anxiously awaiting news of their loved ones throughout the day and stretching into the evening, with many describing waiting to give DNA samples to investigators after the attack.
Families gathered at a nearby civic centre late into Tuesday night to await news of their children who attended the Robb Elementary School, some two miles away, CNN reported. Some families waited for 12 hours at the centre for updates on the shooting.
Parents broke into tears as they learnt of their children’s fate with one man heard sobbing as he walked away from the centre saying into his phone “she’s gone”.
