A mom of two studying to be a nurse, a graduate 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 packed street lined with bars and restaurants around 1 a.m., including his little sister, 22-year-old Megan Betts, his youngest victim, authorities said. It is unclear whether Megan was an intended target, they said.
Megan Betts was an environmental-science student at Wright State University and set to graduate next year, according to her Facebook page.
Logan Turner, who previously attended the college, also was killed, authorities said.
“Sweet and smart” Turner had just celebrated his 30th birthday Tuesday and was out with friends at the time of the shooting, his mother, Danita Turner, 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 left behind a newborn and an older daughter, said childhood pal Derasha Merrett to 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, who was in town from Pennsylvania for an internship at the Maple Tree Cancer Alliance, a treatment center in Dayton.
Cumer, a graduate student in Saint Francis University’s Master of Cancer Care program, “ loved his patients and served them well, with a loving and caring spirit,” Alliance said in a statement.
Victim Thomas McNichols, 25, was a dad of two girls and two boys ranging in age from 2 to 8. He was remembered by his aunt as a “gentle giant.”
When McNichols, a factory worker, got off work Saturday, he and his aunt snacked on Twizzlers together before he went out to the Oregon District, where the shooting occurred, with a cousin, she said.
“Everybody loved him. He was like a big kid,” the aunt, Donna Johnson, told the station. “When all of the movies come out — “Batman,” “Black Panther” — he would get all his nephews and take them to the movies.”
Another victim, Derrick Fudge, 57, was out with his son Dion Green, his son’s fiancee 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 the victim’s sister, Twyla Southall. “His son is very distraught.”
Friends Beatrice Warren-Curtis, 36, who went by Nicole Curtis, and Monica Brickhouse, 39, were also out together when they were killed, another woman, Brittany Hart, wrote on Facebook.
Also killed in the rampage was 38-year-old Saeed Saleh.
