Friends, family remember victims of Orlando nightclub shooting
A gunman wielding an assault-type rifle and a handgun opened fire inside a crowded gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, early Sunday, leaving at least 49 people dead in the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history. Here are stories of some of the victims.
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Capt. Antonio Davon Brown, 29, served in the Army Reserve and deployed to Kuwait for nearly a year.
Brown graduated in 2008 from Florida A&M, where he majored in criminal justice and participated in the ROTC program.
Lt. Col. Kelvin Scott, a ROTC instructor, remembered Brown's positive attitude and sense of humor.
"He kept a smile on his face," Scott told the Tallahassee Democrat newspaper. "He was willing to work very hard to earn his commission."
Devonta White, a friend of Brown's, said Brown was known in their dorm for waking up early for drills and becoming close friends with his fellow trainees, but also making friends outside of ROTC.
"He had a car so when he went to Wal-Mart, I would ride with him," White said. "We just became good friends over time. He helped me more than he knows."
An Army service record shows Brown deployed to Kuwait from April 2010 to March 2011.
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Darryl Roman Burt II, 29, worked as a financial aid officer for Keiser University in Jacksonville, Florida, campus.
As a volunteer, he co-chaired a clothing drive for the homeless for the Jacksonville Jaycees, a nonprofit organization.
"Darryl was very passionate about working in the community and wasn't afraid to take the lead," Jacksonville Jaycees President Shawn DeVries told the Indianapolis Star. "If someone needed anything, he'd usually just ask for the details: where, when and what are the deadlines."
Burt left behind family in central Indiana, and recently earned a degree in human resources management.
Keiser University's chancellor Arthur Keiser called Burt "a highly respected member of the KU team" on the school's website, and the school was providing grief counselors to help Burt's colleagues.
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Simon Adrian Carrillo-Fernandez, 31, loved to travel and "worked to be able to enjoy his life," co-worker Ivonne Irizarry said.
A manager at McDonald's, Carillo-Fernandez had traveled to the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and Mexico and went on cruises, Izarry said.
He and his partner, 26-year-old Oscar Aracena-Montero, who also was killed at the nightclub, had just returned from Niagara Falls, Irizarry told the Orlando Sentinel.
Carillo-Fernandez never forgot a birthday, she said, and would bring in cakes for his McDonald's co-workers.
Colleagues said Carrillo-Fernandez's attention to detail was a trademark of his leadership style.
"He had to be the best, that was his thing. I cook the best, I clean the best, I work the best," she said of him.
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Akyra Murray, 18, recently graduated third in her high school class of 42 students, had scored 1,000 points on the basketball team and had signed a letter of intent to play basketball at Mercyhurst University.
"She was very loving, caring, out to help anybody," recalled her mother, Natalie Murray.
To celebrate her graduation, Akyra Murray, her parents and her 4-year-old sister traveled to Orlando. Murray wanted to party in downtown Orlando, and her parents dropped her off at Pulse at 11:30 p.m.
About 2 a.m., Murray sent a text message, saying that she and her cousins wanted to be picked up and there'd been a shooting. Moments later, the phone rang.
"... (S)he was screaming, saying she was losing a lot of blood," Natalie Murray said.
She was hiding in a bathroom stall, her arm bleeding for hours with no medical treatment. Akyra Murray told her mother to call police.
They never spoke again.
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Leroy Valentin Fernandez, 25, recently had found a job as a leasing agent for an Orlando apartment complex, said his friend, Jennifer Rodriguez.
"He had finally found something he liked. He was taking care of his mom," she said of Fernandez, who was also her hair stylist and one of her best friends.
"He was like a brother," she said. "He was just really very spirited and always happy, you know?"
Fernandez recently had been dating an older man, a dancer known by the stage name Eman Valentino, who also died in the shooting.
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Xavier Emmanuel Serrano Rosado, 35, went by Eman Valentino on the stage. He dressed elegantly in a top hat, tie and gloves, collecting tips from the audience between high kicks and spins, according to a YouTube video.
Off the stage, Rosado had a young son who had graduated from pre-kindergarten.
"I have no words to express how proud and happy I am of my little boy," Rosado wrote on Facebook recently about his son.
Yemil Royce, a friend, described Rosado as hard-working, talkative and friendly: "He was a lovely friend, brother and father."
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