The July 28 attack at the Gilroy Garlic Festival took three young lives and left many with physical or emotional wounds. Here are the stories of those who lost their lives.
‘His Smile Would Just Melt Ya’
Trevor Irby, 25, grew up in Romulus in upstate New York. He played sports and had a lot of friends, said his grandmother, Juanita Walborn.
“He was a wonderful kid. Everybody liked him,” she told KQED by phone on Tuesday. “He was larger than life. His smile would just melt ya. He was really a good kid.”
Irby, who graduated from Keuka College in 2017 with a degree in biology, had recently moved to Santa Cruz with his girlfriend Sarah Warner, a Keuka graduate who wasn’t injured in the attack. Irby was working with the elderly, Walborn said, and planned to return to New York in August to finish his schooling to become a doctor’s assistant.
“He loved it. He had one old lady who was 102 years old and she just adored Trevor,” she said, adding that the woman gave him a teddy bear.
Walborn said her grandson was there for her when her husband died in June.
“Every night, Trevor called me. I mean, every night,” she said through tears. He’d say, “’I love you grandma,’ and I’d say, ‘I love you, too.’ ”
Walborn said they last spoke on Sunday, before Irby left to attend the Garlic Festival, which he had told her about. And, he told her that he loved her, she said.
She said Irby was near the stage with his girlfriend when the gunman opened fire.
“He’s the type that would do anything for anybody, that’s how he was,” she said. “If you met Trevor, you had a friend for life.”
Some of Irby’s friends have set up a GoFundMe fundraising website in his memory. On the site, they wrote about an “inseparable bond” developed during college. “As seniors, we lived together and created countless memories that we hold close to our hearts,” they wrote.
They described Irby as a brother, a son, a grandson, a boyfriend, a best friend and a “bright light to all who knew him.”
“Trevor was an excellent pillar of the Keuka College & Romulus communities and a kind & positive soul,” his friends wrote on the site. “Trevor will forever live on in the memory of his loved ones.”
Keuka College said it would organize a vigil for Trevor when the time was appropriate.
‘A True Wonder’
Keyla Salazar, a 13-year-old girl from San Jose, was eating ice cream with her family when they heard what they believed to be fireworks but then realized were gunshots, her aunt, Katiuska Pimentel, told The Associated Press.
As they fled, Keyla stayed behind with her stepfather’s mother, who uses a cane.
“If Keyla hadn’t been there, her stepfather’s mother would have been shot,” said Pimentel.
The family got separated and searched desperately for Keyla. Her father later learned that she had died, AP reported.
“You all can imagine, there’s many feelings going through our minds and hearts,” Pimentel said at a vigil for Keyla in San Jose on Tuesday night held at her charter school.
She read a statement written by Keyla’s mother, Lorena Pimentel: “Keyla was a beautiful child who really cared for other people and for animals. She was our motivation, and we’re in pain that we lost her.”
Keyla was a dedicated student who loved drawing and video games and wanted to become an animator, Pimentel told AP.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported that Keyla, who was asking her parents for a golden retriever puppy, would have turned 14 this Saturday. Pimentel told the newspaper that her family will honor her last request and get the puppy.
In the announcement for the community vigil on Tuesday night, Keyla’s family described her as “una verdadera maravilla” — a true wonder.
‘Joyful, Always Wanted to Play’
Stephen Romero was a fun-loving boy who had celebrated his sixth birthday at Legoland in June and was looking forward to starting kindergarten, according to media reports.
His uncle, Noe Romero, of Madera, called Stephen “El Romantico” because of his pressed shirts, love of ballads and his good manners.
“He wouldn’t leave the house unless he had cologne on,” Romero told the San Francisco Chronicle. Stephen, he said, was a “very outgoing kid, very loving.”