Victoria Soto has been revealed as one of the teachers who died in the line of fire as she saved her students in the Connecticut shooting.
Miss Soto, 27, was one of three teachers murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School today.
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Police also identified the school’s principal Dawn Hochsprung, 47, and school psychologist Mary Sherlach, 56, as three out of the eight adults who were killed.
They lost their lives when alleged gunman Adam Lanza, went on a shooting rampage before shooting himself. Miss Soto sacrificed herself to save her students – throwing her body in front of the young children, the MailOnline reports. |
Diane Day, a school therapist, told the Wall Street Journal that she and several other teachers were in a meeting with Mrs Hochsprung and Mrs Sherlach when the shooting began.
They were meeting to discuss a second-grader, AP reports.
“We were there for about five minutes chatting, and we heard Pop! Pop!, Pop!” Day said.
“I went under the table.”
But Hochsprung and the psychologist leaped out of their seats and ran out of the room, Day recalled. “They didn’t think twice about confronting or seeing what was going on,” she said.
A friend posted a tribute to Miss Soto on her Tumblr account. In her tribute she wrote: “I talked to Vicki Tuesday and she told me that she loved her 16 angels and never wanted to let them go. Today when the shooting started Vicki hid her kids in closets and when the gunman came into her room she told them the class was in gym. She was then murdered. Not one of her students were harmed. Words can not express how heartbreaking and tragic this is. I will miss you dearly.”
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On Twitter, her friends also posted their tributes. Taneka Alisha wrote: “Saddened to learn that someone I went to high school with died today in the shooting. My god. #RIP Victoria Soto.”
Another Twitter user, James Campbell, wrote: “My mom’s co-worker’s friend died in the Newtown shooting today. She was a first grade teacher. RIP Victoria Soto #PrayerForNewtown” Sherlach, 56, was school psychologist at Sandy Hook Elementary School and was one year away from retirement, according to local US reports. |
She and her husband Bill were looking forward to spending more time on Owasco Lake during her retirement.
Her son Eric Schwartz, a freelance writer, found out about her death from watching the news after they were contacted by his wife Maura’s sister, Katie.
“She was saying ‘turn on the news, turn on the news,’ ” Eric Schwartz recalled.