Nightmare: Officers and members of the Alameda County Coroner's Bureau surround multiple bodies from the site of a multiple shooting in Oakland, California
A Guyanese mother of two was among seven persons fatally shot by a crazed former student in the killing spree in Oakland, California at a nursing school on Monday.
Judith Seymour, 53, wanted to be a nurse following in the path of her parents’ footsteps after she lost her job as tax analyst. She enrolled in a nursing degree program and was just two months away from completing her studies when a bloodthirsty gunman, seeking revenge on college administrators, burst into her Oakland nursing school classroom and shot her and nine others. Three survived.
The suspected shooter, former nursing student One Goh, told investigators he had been disrespected at the school and wanted to get back at the administrators. When he could not find any, he went after students.
In the wake of the tragedy, families and friends are struggling to cope with the loss of their loved ones. Seymour’s fiancé Timothy Brown and relatives only learn about her as a victim on Tuesday after she failed to answer calls and messages. “You don’t think someone going to a nursing school is going to be killed by someone crazy with a gun,” said Brown. “One moment she’s here, and one moment she’s gone.”
Brown first suspected something was amiss Monday when he called Judith and didn’t get a response, which, he said, never happens. “When he got home around 8 p.m., she wasn’t there, increasing his anxiety”. But he figured she’d be home soon, and he turned on the news.
“I saw the picture of dead bodies laying in the grass covered up,” he said.
Then he learned the shootings were at his fiancé’s school, Oikos University.
He prayed Seymour had already left, but then he found out the killings happened while she was scheduled to be in class. He called everyone he could think of, but the authorities wouldn’t tell him anything. The family used GPS to track her cell phone to her car in the Oikos parking lot.
Soon, a friend who had spoken to Seymour’s instructor called and broke the news, before Oakland police confirmed it Tuesday morning.
“(I’m) shocked, devastated, heartbroken,” Brown said. “She really loved her classmates. They called each other all the time, any time of night. She was proud and happy that she was going to be a nurse.” “She was very excited, happy and proud” at completing her training in two months, Brown said, adding that nursing came naturally to Seymour, a leader of a tight-knit class at Oikos.
“Everyone who met her knew that she was down to earth, they loved her instantly, they could see her gentle, loving nature,” Brown said.
“She had a great bedside manner and she could establish a rapport with patients,” he said. “She was very tender. She had the touch.”
Seymour was also passionate about her faith and, most of all, her family. Her son, Brian, and daughter, Camella, who are both in their 20s, join her brother and sister in mourning.
Seymour was proud of her two adult children and was looking forward to seeing her daughter earn her master’s degree in business management. Brian is attending community college in San Jose. Her parents were nurses in New York before moving to their native Georgetown, Guyana.
