Dark Knight Rises Shooting Victims Names Released

The Arapahoe County Coroner’s Office has released the names of those killed in The Dark Knight Rises massacre in Aurora, Colorado Friday night. With the release of those names come stories of the victims, from Jessica Ghawi, the aspiring sports reporter, to Matthew McQuinn, who heroically shielded his girlfriend and her brother, at the expense of his own life.

While a lot of the focus so far has been spent on uncertainty about why James Holmes opened fire in a darkened theater at the start of The Dark Knight Rises midnight premiere, as well as who the shooter was, The Huffington Post was among the sites who gathered information about the victims so that we can understand and celebrate who they were.

The names of the 12 lives cut short are: Jessica N. Ghawi, Veronica Moser-Sullivan (youngest), John T. Larimer, Alexander J. Boik, Jesse E. Childress, Jonathan T. Blunk, Rebecca Ann Wingo, Alex M. Sullivan, Gordon W. Cowden, Micayla C. Medek, Alexander C. Teves and, while his body has not been definitively identified by relatives, Matthew R. McQuinn.

Among those names are Veronica Moser Sullivan, who was the youngest victim at age six. Her mother, Ashley Moser, is one of 11 victims who remain in the hospital, with the 25-year-old mother floating in and out of consciousness with bullets in her throat and a bullet wound in her abdomen.

Her aunt, Annie Dalton, told reporters, according to The Atlanta Journal Constitution, that nobody has the heart to tell Ashley that her young daughter is dead. Annie Dalton stated:

“All she’s asking about, of course, is her daughter. She was a vibrant 6-year-old. She was excited, she’d just learned how to swim. She was a great little girl, excited about life — she should be at 6 years old.”

The father of victim Alex Sullivan, 27, was photographed by reporters yesterday while he frantically searched for information about his son. Later on, he was pictured crying out while embracing family members when his search was unsuccessful. Joe Loewenguth, Sullivan’s uncle, stated:

“He was a very, very good young man. He always had a smile, always made you laugh. He had a little bit of comic in him. Witty, smart. He was loving, had a big heart.”

The oldest victim on the list is 51-year-old Gordon Cowden, age 51. The coroner’s report states that autopsies on all victims have been completed, and the cause of death for all 12 is gunshot wounds, because of homicide. Click here to see the official letter sent out by the Arapahoe County Coroner’s Office.

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