From loved ones and co-workers, stories of Las Vegas victims emerge

A registered nurse. A hockey coach. A police records technician.

They were among at least 59 people killed Sunday night in Las Vegas after authorities said a gunman sprayed a crowd at a country music concert with automatic weapons fire.

By Monday night, authorities said, more than 500 people were wounded in the assault from a hotel room at the nearby Mandalay hotel.

The names of the dead and details of their lives — and deaths — began to trickle out Monday. Authorities in Las Vegas did not release a list of victims, but word emerged from other sources, including family and employers.

Sonny Melton, 29, of Big Sandy, Tennessee, was a registered nurse who covered his wife Heather with his body when the hail of bullets rained down.

“At this point, I’m in complete disbelief and despair,” his wife told Nashville’s WZTV-Fox in a statement. “Sonny was the most kind-hearted, loving man I have ever met. He saved my life and lost his.” The couple married in June 2016, according to the wedding website The Knot.

“We were the couple that never should have met, fallen in love or had a future together . . . but life is funny and we believe God brought us together as soul mates,” read the couple’s wedding page.

John Phippen, 56, a New York native who moved to Santa Clarita, California, where he owned a remodeling company. Phippen was shot in the back as he danced next to his son Travis, an emergency medical technician who carried his father to a car that took them to the hospital, the Los Angeles Times said.

Jordan McIldoon, 23, of British Columbia, Canada, was attending the country music festival with his girlfriend and had planned to return home Monday night, his parents, Al and Angela McIldoon, told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.

“We only had one child,” they told the network. “We just don’t know what to do.”

They said McIldoon was a heavy-duty mechanic apprentice and was preparing to start trade school.

Lisa Romero, 48, a grandmother, was a secretary who worked at Miyamura High School in Gallup, New Mexico, according to the Albuquerque Journal.

“She was a beautiful soul who valued her family more than anything,” her cousin Albert Gabaldon said via Facebook messenger, the Journal reported. “Her kids and grandchildren were her world.”

Jessica Klymchuk, 28, from Alberta, Canada, also was among those who died, according to Alberta Premier Rachel Notley, who expressed sympathy for the loss.

Klymchuk, a mother of four, worked as an educational assistant, librarian and bus driver at a school and went to Las Vegas with her fiance, according to the Toronto Globe and Mail.

Quinton Robbins, 20, lived in Henderson, Nevada, studied at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, and worked as a recreational assistant in his hometown’s city government.

“Quinton was a pay-it-forward kinda guy,” said Tyce Jones, who has known the Robbins family for 14 years and went to church with Robbins.

“He loved his family and loved to coach his little brother’s flag football team. He will be missed,” Jones told Newsweek.

Adrian Murfitt, a 35-year-old commercial fisherman who lived in Anchorage, Alaska, died at the concert, according to his friend and fellow festivalgoer Brian MacKinnon.

They had just moved toward the stage to hear Jason Aldean, Murfitt’s favorite artist, when they heard what sounded like fireworks behind them.

When Murfitt turned to look behind him, a bullet hit him in the neck, MacKinnon told the Los Angeles Times. An off-duty firefighter tried to clear the blood blocking his airway, but even with CPR, it was futile, the concert goer said.

MacKinnon said Murfitt later died in his arms.

Denise Salmon Burditus, a West Virginia resident, died in the arms of her husband Tony, according to the Los Angeles Times. She was anticipating the birth of a fifth grandchild, her husband of 32 years had posted on Facebook, the newspaper reported.

Susan Smith, 53, was an office manager for an elementary school in Simi Valley, California, and had worked for the school district for 16 years, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Bailey Schweitzer, 20, of Bakersfield, California, was fatally shot, the Bakersfield Californian reported learning from her brother, Dakota Schweitzer. The siblings’ father, Scott Schweitzer, owns the Bakersfield Speedway, the newspaper reported.

Jack Beaton of Bakersfield, California, died in the gunfire, according to KBAK-CBS and KBFX-Fox, which both said his mother-in-law confirmed his death. According to various news media reports, his son Jake Beaton, also posted confirmation on social media. “If every 1 could please pray for my dad and every 1 else at the rout 91 he jumped in front of my mom and got shot,” he tweeted. “I love youdad #atruehero.”

Rhonda LeRocque, a 42, of Tewksbury, Massachusetts, was next to her husband at the concert, when she was shot, her mother told WCVB- ABC in Boston. “As far as I know, he thought she ducked and she didn’t,” Rhonda LeRocque’s mother told reporters.

Neysa Tonks, a Las Vegas resident, worked at a California-based technology company and was the mother of three boys, the Los Angeles Times said.

Charleston Hartfield, 34, was a beloved football coach and a police officer for the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. “Chuck,” as he was known, was “a great man” who “touched many lives both on and off the field,” the Henderson Cowboys [the team he coached] wrote in a Facebook post. Hartfield was off-duty Monday night. He was also a military veteran.

Angie Gomez was a 2015 graduate of Riverside Polytechnic High School in Riverside, California. She “will always be loved and endeared by our Poly family,” read a post on the school’s Facebook page.

Rachael Parker, a police records technician from California, was shot and ultimately died at a hospital, said the Manhattan Beach Police Department in Southern California.

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Parker was among four department employees who were attending the concert while off-duty. Another suffered minor injuries.

“She was employed with the Manhattan Beach Police Department for 10 years and will be greatly missed,” the department said in a statement.

Thomas Day Jr., 54, had his four children, all adults, with him at the concert when he was killed, his father, Thomas Day Sr. told the Los Angeles Times. Day was a homebuilder living in Riverside, California.

Dana Gardner, 52, was a deputy recorder for San Bernadino County, her employer told the San Bernadino Sun newspaper. Her boss, Recorder and County Clerk Bob Dutton, described the 26-year employee as a “go to person.” He said another staffer had told him that Gardner had been struck by two bullets.

Carrie Barnette, 34, of Orange County, California, was celebrating a friend’s birthday when she was shot and killed. She loved working in food services at Disneyland, where she had been employed for 11 years, her mother Mavis Barnette told the Los Angeles Times. On her Facebook page, people called her a “sweet soul.” “Fly with the hummingbirds,” one friend wrote, referring to Barnette’s late grandparents’ favorite bird, which the Los Angeles Times reported she had tattooed in memory of her late grandparents.

Sandy Casey, a middle-school special-education teacher from Manhattan Beach, was killed in the attack, the school district said.

“This is unbelievably tragic and sad,” Mike Matthews, superintendent of the Manhattan Beach School District, wrote in a Monday morning letter to the district. “This loss is impacting many of our staff members deeply.”

Casey was a 2004 alumna of the College of St. Joseph in Rutland, Vermont, according to a Facebook post on the college’s alumni page.